Adagio
by xLilly White
Summary: 07; Is it mentally possible to force wantonness onto yourself? Pre-game /ZackAerisSeph.
1. Chapter 1

**a&n:** _Alright, so this will be during the years of the war against Wutai... slightly AU, so the characters range from 18 to 25 years old; I know that, normally, Aeris is more of a teenager at this time, but I'm bending things a bit. Their personalities naturally suite their younger age and the events- though if there's something you don't like, you could always notify me... calmly. :) Hope you'll enjoy it! _

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•**1**•

Her hands were cold.

It wasn't a particularly frosty winter night, however. Snow never reached the slums, anyway- some liked to beg for buckets of the stuff from generous people 'up above' in order to strew their roofs with a sparkling white powder that would glint red and green and blue in the neon lights; each tiny flake containing in its core a shard of rainbow, like a trinket from the world from which they'd fallen.

The same little piece of rainbow seemed to be traveling down her cheek in a smatter of tears. His thumb caught it just as it came to her chattering jaw line, and he brought the wetness to his lips, pressing his thumb to his mouth and staring at her hard.

"Why do you always do the opposite of what I tell you?"

Her lips were moving; entrancing him. The skin around her eyes was shiny; the two circles of moss-green were fixed to his mouth, and it seemed her lips stayed parted after she'd opened them to utter that rhetorical question. But as soon as he rolled his shoulders into a reluctant shrug and leaned forwards to console her, she turned around stiffly, her braid slapping across his chest, and then she was off, walking away from him and clutching the furry red jacket to her slight body, tensing up to fight off the cold.

"Ris- _Aeris-_"

The snowflakes that had fallen from the roofs and littered the road seemed to absorb his voice into their icy bowels, and he decided to catch up with her instead of wasting precious breath- his boots slipped in the slushy snow, where a million cars and carts and chocobo feet had trodden. He reached out an arm after easily catching up with her, touching the white dress where it emerged from the hem of her coat- which meant, just above her backside- and she turned around sharply, whipping up a hand and catching him wickedly across the cheek.

"I don't want the company of a SOLDIER who doesn't know how to get his priorities right."

Her words were as cold as the sensation spreading over his cheek. Strange- he thought slaps like _that_ were meant to burn. Well, all the same… with her, everything was reversed. Flowers bloomed in decrepit old churches. Old men smiled in the streets. Hell, even when they made love, she was always ontop, for god's sake.

"Aeris, this is my godamn _job-_"

"It's your job to follow the orders of some piece of _scum_ who calls himself the President and bend to his every will, is it?" she snapped, not bearing that hateful sentiment that is loss, "Tell me Zack, would you get in _bed_ with him if he asked you to?"

"Oh, for the love of-" He couldn't help snorting at that, earning a sharp glance from the pink-clad girl shivering in front of him. "It isn't like that, 'Ris, not like that at all. I've never even seen the damn man." Plenty of other SOLDIERs had seen the President in all his porky splendor in the annual ceremonies and banquets and such. Him, well, he'd only just fought his way into First Class, and after six months of harsh training under the General himself, with all the impeccable material and facilities offered to the high ranking soldiers, he couldn't say he didn't yearn for the quiet, humble sector of the slums where he had spent his childhood, from where he had so vigorously escaped.  
"Besides, it's not from him that I get my orders, and even if getting in bed with the General is slightly less painful to consider, you know I would _never-_"

"It's not funny, Zack," Aeris huffed, hugging herself, a crease appearing in the tender, pale flesh of her bosom, disappearing beneath the spotty pink corset she was wearing over white skirts. "It's war."

The word was like a dramatic jolt. It should've stopped affecting him so much, but hearing it like that from those lips, well… he still had his weaknesses.

"Of course it's war. And I know I'm not proud of what it is I'm getting into: at least I'll be getting enough-" –_spoils-_ "- payment to get us both out of here once it's over."

Aeris turned her head a fraction, her breath seeping from her rosy lips like twisting spectres, dancing up into the air before mingling with his own and traveling up, up into invisibility.

Zack understood what she implied by that tiny movement, that slip of body language that he'd come to masterfully interpret.

"I can't promise you I won't get my hands dirty, 'Ris."

Her dark lashes came down to touch her cheeks, and it seemed like she was inwardly withdrawing; storing herself away in a cool place where he wouldn't be able to touch her anymore, where she would be safe. In the cold.

He hated seeing her like this. He knew that she completely understood what he'd implicated and it hurt him so much to be sincere- but that's the way she wanted him to be. So as much as he would've liked to promise her otherwise… he knew he could count on no one to change the way his mind and body worked, so in the end, the inevitable was to be expected.

"…don't come tonight."

And away she went.

• •

"God- damn- _women_."

The bar was full of people, who were laughing and choking on ice cubes and sipping drinks through their muck-incrusted beards. No place better for three SOLDIERs to sit down for a night and contemplate their sleeplessness together, undisturbed, and considered as just three more hopeless cases who weren't worth a pitying thought.

The man with the stylish black top hat and round sunglasses smiled at his companion, seated at the bar to Zack's right, tipping his glass of Manzana with elegant fingers and watching the ice cubes knock against the sides with a crystalline sound.

"Welcome to the real world, Mr First Class," the top hat man purred with such a deep voice that it sounded like it came from the bowels of some deep-sea creature. "You didn't think the bliss would last an eternity, did you?"

"But they're so-" Zack hurled an animalistic groan into his glass, the reverberation distorting the sound so that it almost sounded comical. The man seated to his left, the one with the slicked crimson hair and sombre eyes that should've belonged to someone ancient, scoffed a little. "-_whiny_. You can't do anything without them clawing at you from behind, telling you to come, come, and then five minutes later there's a change of plans and they'll be telling you to go away, go away."

"Oh, those ones are easy to handle," said the redhead, scooping up the creamy froth that crowned his beer with Zack's plastic stirrer, long since finished with the jokes centered on the naked feminine forms of the thing in question. "Those ones come running at the drop of the hat; you can toy with them till you're blue in the face and they still won't see it coming. You just don't know how to deal with clinginess, darling."

"Eh?" Zack slurred, looking over to the redhead man to his left and raising an eyebrow. "Man, you're not getting me- I'm _talking_ about a _woman_, here. So don't start waltzing in with your masculine experiences and all that bullshit, because it does _not_ compare."

"Zack, Zack, calm down," the top-hat man crooned, a solitary smile appearing on his glacial features like a lonely isle, a little speck of expression in all that black and white mystery. "There's an entire subtlety to be known when dealing with women- men too, I suppose, though that's not my domain, I'm afraid…" A tragic swig of Manzana later, and his breath smelt sweet and fruity fresh. "You can't just _classify_ them. But, you'll forgive me if I don't go further into the subject. It's a bore to try and make soldiers understand something that can be defined as _subtle _and _complex_."

"Ah, the great General has spoken," Zack smiled, accidentally raising his voice, bringing up his glass and tipping half the stuff on himself, leaning back as though he was toasting to his ever-secretive boss who shot him one of those sharp looks that meant, _beat it, kid_. But, Zack didn't care. He wasn't even half as drunk as they'd already seen him become, but he was well on his way. "Everything's a _bore_ when it comes to enhancing our measly Mako-minds, isn't it? I mean, we don't _fight_ well enough for you, we don't _get up_ early enough, we don't resist _alcohol_ well enough, and what, we don't _fuck_ well enough either-"

The 'General' in the top hat was laughing darkly to himself, his lips tightly sealed, glossy with apple-scented alcohol residue.

"You're probably right, Zack, but that's none of my business, and I'd rather not know."

"Why are you so damn closed on yourself, man? You talk like a woman! You talk like _my_ woman!" Zack was laughing, and the crimson-haired SOLDIER to his left was sort of looking the other way, sucking up the froth on his beer and pretending he was one of those melancholic poets who strolled the slums during the night looking heartbreaking and lived like rich bastards up above during the day. "There's not one valuable thing that you'll willingly share with us, you sodding clam!"

"Damien," the General baritoned down the bar, completely indifferent to what Zack was spluttering in his alcohol-induced madness, "I think you should go and put him away somewhere, preferably not between a woman's legs."

"Alright." The crimson-haired man gave his boss a knowing smile, trying to compensate for Zack's obvious lack of respect that was obliged still in casual moments like this one, and slid an arm around Zack's shoulders to 'help him up'; though, the movement was a little too suggestive to the General's liking.

"No, Damien- _not_ your flat."

He swore the redhead looked slightly disappointed, though he covered it up well. Mentally, the top hat man made notes. _That one's good at concealment, traitorous around the edges. And he's sly, and he's got a svelte physique. Hm… he'd make a good double-agent. _

"But he's drunk," was Damien's argument.

"Yes, but not sufficiently so for memory loss, and I don't want any traumatized cases in my ranks."

Damien stared at him almost imploringly, before recovering his spirits and mumbling something about needing fresh air, getting up from his high chair in one graceful swing of the limbs and sweeping off.

The General tipped his top-hat, impatiently throwing back his head to finish the Manzana in one swig before turning around and heaping Zack's inert body against his chest, weaving an arm around his waist and helping him walk out without the slightest effort in the world, his gait steady as he headed for the door as though he wasn't dragging some 75 kilos worth of alcohol-soaked muscle and spiky hair. He knew it. No one could be trusted around here… not even to do a single helpful errand. _Ah, mother. _

• •

Aeris drew the covers closer to her naked body, shivering as the wind seeped past the cracks in the window and trailed cold fingers over the exposed skin of her shoulders. Had the cold woken her? Or had her dream worn itself out as they usually did? She tucked an icy foot in the crook behind her knee, warming herself and breathing on her cupped hands. It must've been one or two in the morning, judging by the darkness outside, where all the neon lights in her area had been shut off. What could possibly have-

The doorbell buzzed again, an irritably long while, and she groaned into her pillow. _Ah, Gospel, if that's Zack, I swear…_ After all, who else could it be, asides from random beggars who knocked at her door sometimes to express their gratitude after spending the entire night trying to find her house- she had to stop paying these guys so many favours, if it was to get chopped up nights and compassion attacks at every possible hour.

Dragging her covers up with her and not even bothering to pull on some underwear, Aeris sleepily shuffled out of her room, down the stairs and to the front door, leaving on the latch as she unlocked it and opened it in a crack.

"Yes, what, what do you want."

There was a gurgle, and the unmistakable sound of a body being impatiently heaved up again by someone who was supporting it.

"I'm sorry but, I believe you left this behind."

The voice was unfamiliar- it was deep, crooked, and if she could permit herself, _sensual_ somehow. It demanded admiration, at the very least. Perhaps mindless submission came afterwards. But that wasn't what struck Aeris at first- no, what struck her was that that voice certainly wasn't Zack's, and it certainly didn't belong to some dirty beggar, and most importantly, this someone was right there on the other side of the door, fully dressed, and she was half-wrapped in her woolly duvet, her hair all disheveled and crease marks cutting up her cheeks.

_Crap, crap, double crap._

"Can you- can you just- a minute?" she said hurriedly, aware that her heart was leaping up her throat and she hadn't even remembered she had one, in all this confusing waking-up-and-remembering-your-life business.

"I'm afraid I can't," interrupted the sensual kook from outside; she hadn't even seen him, seeing as she'd opened the door and stayed behind it. "I'm sure you'll understand that your property has been drooling on me for the entire time it took to get to your house, and I'd rather drop it off quickly."

_But I'm lacking underwear_, was what Aeris wanted to tell the man outside, beginning to get ideas and fretting that this man was actually one of those rapist people who the kids kept trying to scare each other about- but then she heard another of those strange gurgles and it sounded very much like her name.

She gasped. "Zack?" _My property…? Oh!_

Telling herself that it didn't matter, and that people in the slums these days had seen their fair share of naked flesh anyway, Aeris took off the security latch and opened the door more fully, sticking a bare arm and half her face around it to see the couple on the doorstep.

That kook with the sensual voice actually looked quite… how to say it? He was dressed in a long black coat, a muffler was around his neck, and a top hat coupled with funny round sunglasses shielded his identity. He certainly was strange. But, that fine jaw line, that elegant nose; the finesse of his features that he actually let on show made her inexorably wonder how the rest of his features might match up, and she had to mentally shake herself to bring her eyes down to that shivering lump attached to the kook's side, only recognizable by those bulky shoulders and, obviously, that wild mane of ebony hair.

Ignoring the hot flush that rose to her cheeks, Aeris afforded the top hat man a shy smile, retreating even further behind her door, granting them entrance. Alright, so the guy had been a bit pushy, but it was unfair to leave him out in the biting cold when he'd clearly had a very long night.

"Forgive me for the disturbance," the kook spoke quietly as he crossed her threshold.

The hem of his coat brushed against her bare knee as he passed.

"It's- it's nothing."

• •


	2. Chapter 2

**a&n:** _Hey! Thanks so much, Lifeispietzche, aerithsrain and Chibitaryndemon for the gorgeous reviews. I'm sorry for the wait, and I couldn't get this chapter quite right, either... but well, these things have their ups and downs, right? And, Christ, we're_ getting_ to the sex, so why don't you just hang around a bit longer, eh? :) Thanks for reading!_

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•**2**•

The rain was pouring down in glittering sheets, just as translucent and indifferent as the expression on her face as she tugged her fur-lined coat further around her shoulders. Her eyes were dark with make-up; they glinted bone white as she shot a look up at the sky, robbed of all its nightly splendor by gluttonous rain clouds.

It was as though a thousand diamond chandeliers were being dropped down from above, shattering noisily over the pavements, windshields, cutting up the lamppost light into eerie shapes and faces in the dark. A few of them were flickering, actually. Maybe she should've waited at her studio a little longer. Well. Too late to turn back now.

A man was sheltering himself under the bus stop, too, staring at her intently, and she was either pointedly ignoring him, or hadn't noticed his presence yet. His eyes were overshadowed by a cap, pulled down low over his forehead, so that his lips were the only part of his face that really caught your attention; protruding like twin spines, seemingly wine-coloured in the dark and casting sensual shadows over the dips in his lower face.

He was staring at her, his delicious mouth curled in a smug kind of way, and when she extended her forearm to unhook the umbrella from its black satin length, he took a step forward. She couldn't help but notice him, then. She couldn't pretend much longer, if that's what she'd been playing at. Readying her umbrella before her with both hands, her lips parted as she took in a breath without quite knowing why- she had been expecting him, after all. Her head, crowned as it was with a twist of long black hair that was set into place by a few beaded pins, turned a fraction.

A look passed between them.

A smile of those spine-like lips later, his hand had slipped onto the silk that covered the small of her back, and she had erected the umbrella over both their heads. The rain was too loud for him to hear the pounding of her heart beneath its wad of jade green silk and pearls, but she could almost feel her wrists pulsating as she clutched onto the umbrella handle as though onto dear life.

Her heel snapped almost as loudly as one of the angry droplets of rain as she ventured out from beneath the bus stop, crossing the road beneath the umbrella, with his breath on her neck and his hand on her back, making her instinctively square her shoulders and look straight ahead.

He was smiling.

• •

"You're just passing, right?"

Aeris and her rather forced 'guest' had just managed to prop Zack into one of the kitchen chairs, his arms hanging and looking too long compared to the rest of his body as he lounged there, head back and mouth open; he would've looked comical if the sight hadn't been so familiar. Well, actually, the kook in the top hat had done most of the work, because she'd shot upstairs to pull on one of the many scattered garments that littered her room; a short dress that accentuated her waistline, red with white spots, and straps digging into the tender flesh of her shoulders. The kook watched her as she bent over Zack, downy chestnut hairs curling around her nape before being rudely scraped up in a messy bun; from where he stood, at several steps behind her, he could only see the healthy curve of her cheek, with a snatch of dark lashes in perspective. She passed a finger over the upper lip of the drunken man, before slowly bringing it up to her nose.

"Ugh- I don't _believe_ it…" she groaned as she recognized that poignant smell; it had the same tangy acidity that she'd taste on his tongue, on most nights when he 'dropped by'.

"I am," the man spoke into his muffler in response to her question, that deep voice evoking black cotton as it spurned into her ears.

She turned to study his face, crossing her arms around her skinny waist, purple half-moons etched beneath her disturbingly green eyes.

"Actually, I don't know where the man lives. I thought you might tell me how to get there, perhaps, seeing as you're bound to have been up there several times to meet him."

So sure of himself, this man. Aeris couldn't help but feel intrigued, and at the same time, an intuitive feeling of defiance seemed to be brewing in the face of such self-confidence. She wondered who he was…

"What makes you so sure that I don't want him sleeping in my home?"

A flash of amusement seemed to animate the man's pale features as her words tumbled delicately from her mouth.

"A man like him doesn't pick a night at the bar with people like me, over a comfortable night with people like you, unless something's amiss," he spoke almost slyly, and he observed her lips tightening with that trade-mark arrogance that he so adored to abuse of.

She wasn't sure what he implied by that remark, and she lifted a hand to stow away imaginary strands of hair, hiding her reddening cheeks from those hidden eyes of his.

"I… I wouldn't be able to tell you how to get there." She didn't want to think up of a clever comeback for that strange remark, and she found that she was trying to smooth out the stammer in her voice; she was just tired, half-annoyed at being kept up this late, and half-excited at the prospect of going to the upper world. "It's too long to explain. I could show you the way, though."

A silver eyebrow twitched, though his marble face remained unchanging. "It must be graver than I thought. So you'd be willing to go out into the cold, the snow, the night, with a complete stranger, just to get your boyfriend away from your house…"

Aeris couldn't help but laugh at that. She was too tired to be annoyed, and besides, it could only be playful; it seemed like this man needed to decompress, and seeing as she'd come across a lot of Zack's SOLDIER friends, she'd gotten used to the jesting and random conversations at any given hour of the day or night that never really seemed to be very constructive, but that somehow consolidated the relationships she had with them.

"It's not that," she smiled, bowing her head to run her inked nails over her hairline distractedly, hiding from his gaze. "I've always loved the world above… when he takes me up, though it's often, it's always a treat."

She was easy to talk with, the kook noted as he pulled out a packet of cigarettes from his inner pocket, his eyes still trailed on her as he advanced toward Zack's limp form- or perhaps it was because of the late hour that she wasn't taking much offence or randomly leaping to her own defense. She hadn't gotten too pissed off at being disturbed in the middle of the night, either- though, she had to be used to that by now, what with Zack's messy agenda. He didn't know his comrade's entire life off by heart, but he knew how volatile the man's mind could be, so he supposed there was something admirable about her patience. He didn't have time to admire every woman's facets, however, even if there was something strangely _off_ in her little mannerisms, as though every time she moved her hand, he knew its itinerary as precisely as if he'd seen it plenty of times before. Deciding not to dwell on it, he strode right up to her, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips so that as she stepped back to let him pass, she caught a pleasant whiff of tobacco-stained apple.

She watched him as he loaded Zack onto his shoulder in an effortless chain of contortions, somewhat awed by the way his limbs moved freely and smoothly, as though each movement had been meticulously calculated beforehand- something struck her about his unnatural grace, the pallor of his skin… that little shimmer of silver on his nape, as he ducked to sling Zack's torso over his shoulder… would she ask him? Then again, was it really important to her, who he really was? Not to mention, he clearly didn't want people recognizing him…

"So you'll lead me up?"

He had moved to the front door, turning the indifference of those two button-like lenses towards her. Everything, from his polished black boots to his concealing muffler and bizarre hat, screamed the stranger that overly anxious parents are constantly warning their kids about; she found it rather amusing that she'd be wandering the moonlit streets of the magnificent city above with the impersonation of the boogie man. And, even though he was slightly unconscious and his brain was currently being cleaned out of its neurons, Zack was still there; it wasn't like she couldn't wake him up with a good kick in the eye if the kook ever tried anything on her. It took an almost frightening amount of alcohol to actually lead the good First Ranker into a proper ethylic coma, anyway.

"Trusting you won't take advantage of my good will," Aeris smiled a little too coquettishly for the current situation, and where it could be taking her. It wasn't like she was bored, or unaware of what kinds of danger were implied when trekking through Midgar in the dead of night- but, she knew they were going to be led to war in a bit less than two days' time, so she didn't want to waste a single opportunity to see the sky. It was just like that… she may be able to make flowers grow without a drop of true sunlight, but she knew she couldn't survive for very long if Midgar completely deprived her of all contact with the real _outside_. And with Zack gone, along with any of his friends who might've been courteous enough to take her up… away went those opportunities.

She didn't think this kook might understand; he certainly didn't look like he enjoyed soaking up sunlight, what with that corpse skin and hands as though sculpted in foggy ice.

"I certainly could."

"You could even test your materia on me and set my house alight right now if you really wanted."

"What tells you that abuse is solely a matter of materia…?"

Her stance shifted ever so slightly. "I thought you actually _wanted_ me to show you the way." His words were only serving as proof of her hypothesis that he might be some deranging remix of Jack the Ripper… long black coat and lean hat included, sweet-talking his victims into obeisance.

"You should be much more on your guard, miss," the man explained his manners, "I would've thought living down here would've taught you at least that." He was about to add, _you haven't even asked me who I am yet_, but for some reason, he thought it might be amusing to see how far they'd get before she asked him. How far… road-wise, of course.

"I've seen enough kinds of people to know whom to trust, sir, and I know that most SOLDIERs are decent people."

He could've laughed out loud at the naïveté of that statement, wondering if that seemingly firm belief would last the night.

"Well, you've certainly encountered the right ones to justify yourself," he said, and she couldn't quite distinguish the tone he used; he had such a strange, cavernous voice that sometimes his implications got lost in its depths. "However, I don't know what makes you think I'm one of them."

"If you think those sunglasses are thick enough to completely cover the glow, you should probably start saving up for new ones," she threw at him mockingly, and she almost saw his fingers twitch as he rested them against the security chain, readying himself to open the door. "Wait!" Hurrying, she went to the lacquered red coat rack, taking from its pegs a coat of the same fiery colour and shrugging it on, the fur bristling around her neck.

The kook couldn't refrain from smiling at this. She wouldn't make a good SOLDIER… going against the simplest laws, even those of common sense, and not blending in with anything; the crowd, the nightscape- with the exception of her house, filled with extravagant flowers as it was. He knew that if he'd been a cold-blooded murderer, this was the kind of person who would be an absolute joy to deceive and desecrate; not that he had those ideas in mind, of course…

"Let's get going, before that flickering neon outside gives out and I change my mind."

Red fur zipped under his nose, and he caught a distinct, earthy scent as she opened the door for him, stepping out into the darkness and looking back over her shoulder with a slightly questioning gaze, inviting him after her, a hesitant smile touching her lips.

What a peculiar creature… Not quite knowing what more to expect, the general in disguise hitched Zack's body into a more comfortable position, ducking out of the door and closing it behind him with a quiet click.

• •

Ah… what a fine taste. Cherry cigarettes imported straight from Wutai… the things were slender, shining gold and black, and they brought a tender fog of the sweetest perfume as they broke from his lips, one by one sucked of their life in a brazier of red glows, before dripping their ashes into the bath water.

Damien reclined in his bathtub, the light bulb above buzzing softly as it hung off its wire. For some reason it was swaying slightly, so the shadows went to and fro in a hypnotizing dance.

Wutai… the war would lead them there, under the President's orders, the following night. It would be a nocturnal journey in those infamous airships that he'd always dreamed of seeing, when he was a kid. Ah, but there were so many things he'd wished for, when he was small… wearing that SOLDIER uniform that lay in a disgraceful heap on the bathroom floor; wielding that sword that rested against the sink, waiting for him to clean it of its blood (a result of feisty training); going to Wutai, that faraway, exotic world that he was on the verge of shattering… it was poetic, really.

That dreamy little boy he'd been had only been part of the millions others who'd been violently swept aside to make place for the men (what did they call it again? Tin soldiers?) that were to grow in their stead. He'd met so many, it was almost distressing… men who would sigh, lean back on their dirty stool and slick back their hair, remembering the old days and telling him exactly the same stories that he'd believed in when he'd been that age.

The cigarette flecked away, and milky smoke escaped from his nose, rendering the air even more translucent. He didn't know if it was because of the SOLDIER training, or the Mako… but he had been past caring for a long, long time.

He crushed the cigarette's remains on the already filthy edge of the bathtub. It was almost amusing how, the last thing they all had to do before going to war was… kill time. He had done all the things the others had hurried to do; eat caviar, drink the most expensive wine imported from Costa del Sol, make love to women with diamonds in their ears… and now, what was there that would complete his existence, so that he wouldn't have any regrets once some Wutain shuriken opened its jaws and invited him into oblivion?

…_Have one more cigarette._


	3. Chapter 3

**a&n:** Hey! It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm back from the dead with asleeponatrain in my sleeve - yep, **starting from this chapter, Adagio is a collaboration between me and him**. Collabs are pretty tedious work, especially when one half is lazy and the other gets bored easily xD We'll see how it turns out! In the meantime, if anyone is still tuned in, feel free to leave some feedback! Peace.  
**Last edited:** 7.9.10

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•**3**•

Sighing, he looked through his window at the layer-cake city. Skyscrapers cloaked in ethereal white shot up from the churning fog that the city lights made as they blended into the darkness; high up as he was in the ShinRa HQ, he seemed completely isolated from this glowing precipice of raw industrial forgery. It was as if he were in a completely different place than the megalopolis directly under his feet. The only close-observation he made of the city was through records and video clips from the security cameras on every street corner: he found himself stuck in his office day in day out, one eye on the screens, the other tacked onto the self-replenishing stacks of papers. Filing, reading, signing, stacking; rinse and repeat. An exhausted sigh escaped his lips and reverberated into the room. _How long have I been trapped here?_

_Blink_. _Blink. Blink._ The word 'incoming' flickered in jade pixels from the desktop. Not even bothering to look up from his scribbling, he barked "Answer" at the monitor in question. Another blink and the dark void of a monitor was illuminated, displaying only a nameless face.

"Sir, subject A has just left the premises and is heading toward Terminal E4. Is with two individuals, one Zack Fair and another unidentified," each word uttered in perfect monotony.

"Unidentified scum," he muttered, brushing back a lank black strand that had come to brush his mouth as he spoke. The infamous _subject_ was always out with folk who didn't register in the regular lists; how was one to keep up with all the slum lurkers, after all? It was a whole other world down there; it was useless to try and keep up with its flow unless you were bathing in the context. And much as he enjoyed studying the human activities of this strange city, he would be much less eager to actually blend into the lives of the folk down there in order to obtain a more vigorous understanding of them.

"Alright," he sighed, "Shut down surveillance for the night. It's getting late, you should go home to your family."

"Yes, sir." The man let some vague semblance of joy escape from his humdrum façade, and the screen turned black once again.

… He still found it sad that the information collected concerning the girl's entourage always revealed oddities and the most bizarre kind of people. Certainly it wouldn't do her much good to let _that_ kind rub off on her.  
_That girl… what an odd taste in men._ With an irritable grunt he threw back the drifting coils of hair incessantly dangling around his face.

His eyes grew weary of looking at hyper-pixelated images of reality and scroll upon scroll of text; distractedly they wandered towards an open file that he'd recently rifled through. Pictures of a young woman with long chestnut tresses tumbling past her shoulders. Doll faces with moss-hued eyes, dotted across the desk, all of them identically unique. Shaking his head, he slapped the thin stack of papers he'd been clutching on top of them. Enough of her for one night.

• •

The clock struck three, and only several streetlights illuminated the decrepit, poverty-stricken slums. She clung onto her jacket as the crisp wind meandered through rifts in the myriad of buildings, screaming through torn seams in the night's glittering, frost-ridden skirts. What an idiot she'd been to wear such frivolities to the slum's nocturnal masquerade; everyone knew how cold it got, how the electricity couldn't be counted on, how danger always reached its most sensual peaks in the heart of darkness such as this. Her hands clung to her clothing as tightly as her teeth clung to her lower lip to stop it from trembling. She didn't want to look as pathetic as she felt – though, the thought of the moon chafed her moodiness a little. How many pieces of the white mask would She have assembled tonight? Would She be peeking out from the void, squinting down at the fume-vomiting city, far from fooled by the scintillating cloak lain down by winter as She offered her pity to the upturned faces of those who venerated Her far down below?  
Aeris was almost jolted out of her reverie by the kook's elbow rudely knocking against her. She turned to see him pulling a cigarette from his inner pocket.  
He'd been watching her.  
Abruptly, she forced herself to relax her shoulders. _It's boiling hot. It's boiling, _boiling,_ boiling…_ Right. The temperature surely didn't stand a chance against the degrees her reddening cheeks were reaching.

"You could have just given me directions," he smirked just slightly, though his tone was rather conversational. They'd been trudging on in silence – well, no, not _trudging_, though she'd tried to stay as feminine as possible in her demarche. He possessed an effortless grace most 'gentlemen' only dreamt of having, his steps unperturbed by the packs of snow and a limp body slumped on his shoulder, the way he held his composure despite the frigid weather...She shook her head, grinning at his comment and trying to forget aesthetics for the time being.

"Ah- back to square one," she said, gaining self-confidence now that he'd been the one to initiate dialogue. "Now that we're on the road, you're back to making me question whether or not I should trust you." But her tone was an amused one. His thoughts raced immediately to clichéd bad-guy quotes, each more ridiculous than the next. He couldn't help but smirk, though maybe his smile held other implications. He noted her confident stance, walking side by side with him completely oblivious. Or maybe not _completely …_

"You seem keen with the idea that I'm a criminal," he uttered, seemingly amused. "_If_ I was presently abducting you, _if_ I really had certain ideas in mind… what could you, in all honesty, do about it?"

She stared at him.

"That playful tone could be your demise," he added as a comforter, cocking his head at her as though saying, _too bad_, "_If _I'm the deranged stranger in the scenario, and you the victim."

_What's he playing at?_ Aeris could feel her pulse quickening, though it was very much like the effect a well-told tale could have as it reached the scary parts. She didn't rightly _trust_ the man, but she wasn't afraid of him either. Call it pride, self-confidence- she didn't know. It was like having a hunch about a person you don't know; you just follow your instinct, and if there's a booby trap at the end of the road… well, at least you'll know who to blame. _It's just a game, so why not play along?_

She opened her mouth, but another thought came to mind. "What about Zack? What part does he play?"

"The ornament."

"Okay."

There was a grunt from said flowerpot. Maybe he was nearing consciousness ~ regardless, he remained in the background for the time being.

"I may look weak, but I can manage alright, you know. Slum life can do that to you. Years spent fighting off men sometimes burlier, sneakier, sometimes more dangerously eloquent than you…"

"I'm disappointing! Now there's something admirable." The kook laughed a strange sort of sinister cough, nothing full throated and warm. Then again, what could she expect of him? "I'm not sure you'd have the mental coherence to compare your past murderers when you're trapped in a net."

"But that's the thing, the net falls gradually. You _do_ have time. And isn't that what makes it enjoyable? The victim's innocence slowly eroding, the gradual realization – first she's lulled by your alluring illusion, then the seams start to stretch and tear, and just as she begins to understand -" She gasped. Her eyes widened with the story, "- the net's too tight for her to struggle."

He was laughing, more genuinely now. "I thought _I_ was the killer here."

"Well, I suppose sometimes the painting takes hold of the painter and makes him understand instead of it being the other way around."

"_Miss_." The kook's eyebrow was raised- they turned a corner and began climbing the uphill street that lead to the station, and just as she opened her mouth to explain herself, she caught him muttering 'fascinating' under his breath. What? There was nothing fascinating about trying to understand your enemy. Which is precisely what she told him.

"Well," His voice was distorted by the cigarette hanging from his lips- he'd been carrying it in his fingers all the while, heedless of its existence as they delved deeper into conversation until he felt the ashes fall from the exhausted end. "Now that you have shown your understanding of a killer's logic, which is quite something, I don't think you have to further convince me of your… efficiency."

"Ah! I've intimidated you," Aeris grinned, playfully victorious- though she was a little taken aback as he slowly, _eerily _turned his face towards her.

Gloved fingers uncoiling like sleek black serpents, he momentarily removed his unlit cigarette from his lips, blood red neon light ominously splattering his shades.

"Not," he purred, "in your wildest dreams".

…one distressing systole later, the young woman had gathered enough of her senses to counterattack.

"_Gaia_," she let out in one rushed breath, "I'd hate to have you on my heels."

"But you already do," the kook continued in his frighteningly believable act, "You invited yourself, remember?"

_It's just a game, _she reminded herself, shocked that she actually had to. _This man… what was up with him? And that tone…_ she was beginning to feel a little edgy, as though she was having some kind of deja-vu. Uncomfortable, unsatisfied, and wanting to know more…what was this? She was never like this. She never stirred the silt. She was pragmatic, reasonable, and knew when to mind her own business - tact was her way of life. Had he influenced her in some diabolical way? In any case, it had to stop _now_ before she got too carried away.

Ah, but she hated it when her good side got the best of her.

"You're gonna end up dropping that," she said, nodding at his cigarette.

He stared at her, stubbornly, and then she realized they'd stopped, and she'd turned a fraction to face him. Zack's backside could've been a brick in the wall behind the kook for all he counted.

And then the tension suddenly dropped, as though one of them had heaved a huge sigh, and the kook lifted a hand to his cigarette, a tiny spark accompanied by a slither of fire leaping from his palm to ignite it.

"You're no fun."

"And you were starting to scare me." She leered at this little performance, noting how natural it was for him to openly use magic. Brutish company in the slums had often made her feel special about her gift with magic and materia- but whenever she was around SOLDIERs, their casual performances of blatantly superior skill always deflated her. Still, she never gave up trying to show she wasn't completely worthless.

"…do you mind if I have one?"

The kook glanced at her from under his top hat. What, did he think Zack hadn't told her about his explicit disdain for girls with 'tarred lungs and chimney perfume'? It should've been fairly evident that Zack held no authority over her… even though there still persisted that submissive side of her that every woman has, urging her to adapt to herself to her significant other's tastes.

Tonight, however, that side seemed to have been buried alive. A second later there was a cigarette dangling between two satin-clad fingers. She took it, wedged it between her lips.

"Pass me your materia," she said with a small grin, as though she knew she wouldn't really impress him, but wanted to try anyway, to show him she wasn't just the measly side of a SOLDIER's couple.

"Don't have any on me," the kook said casually with a shrug, but then his jaw seemed to quirk, as though regretting what he just said. And he certainly had reason to. He didn't use materia! What kind of gift was that? A mere SOLDIER couldn't pull a damn rabbit out a hat without a few colourful orbs in his pockets. Talk about dependencies. But then… surely they wouldn't keep such a useful asset in the same ranks as the other grunts… he probably had some importance in Shinra's army. What the hell was she doing, fooling around with a man like that?

Keeping these thoughts bottled up, along with it the friendly playful arrogance she had somewhat developed around him, Aeris took a discreet breath to stay calm and nodded her head at him, asking him to work his magic. He didn't seem to mean her harm after all.

With one stride he moved directly in front of her, lowering his head towards hers and cupping the cigarette with his hands, the warmth of his breath grazing her wind-burned lips - _too close, much too close._ She found herself on the verge of panic. If she lifted her lashes, she would have seen the iridescent Mako-stained glow of his eyes through his cheap shades - she would see that that strand of hair that fell across her cheek was silver, and she would see skin so smooth that it was difficult to believe that there wasn't something artificial about it.

But she was staying herself. Minding her own business. She'd had enough of wild speculations and games a little too believable to be amusing. All she saw was a spark of fire, his hands blending into the darkness- and as he drew back, she took a deep drag to refrain from looking at him, and to help herself regain consciousness.

_Whoa. What was all that about?_

"You know," the kook smiled crookedly as he walked on, "You really should be more careful."

They reached the terminal headed to the upper plate. There was no snow littering the streets, no transient homeless men sleeping on the bench, no graffiti on the pavement. The terminal was spot clean and was maintained despite the lack of transit. Very few from the slums could afford to ride up, and very few from the industrial upper half dared come down.

The kook dropped Zack onto a bench, startling him and awoke him. Instantly he lost his ornament status, which had proved to be rather relaxing for the two others. "Women are just too compilcating," he managed to gasp out in his drunken stupor, "gen'ral get me another drink –hic- it's too damn cold in this place." His eyes shifted around and met Aeris' gaze, "babe, what're you doin' here? Care for a –hic- drink?"

A pang of chagrin ran across her face. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she clenched her fists, trying best not to exacerbate herself.

"Zack, you need some sleep," the man explained to him.

"Yes sir –hic- but first, the latrine," he stood up and took a few steps, turned to face away and unzipped his trousers. He let out a sigh of relief as his bowels discharged the alcohol, hitting the concrete with a plash.

"Oh, for the love of-", Aeris' turned away, bringing her hand to her head in repugnance. She could feel the blood rushing to her face more, so mortified at him she had to bite her lip to keep from beating him senseless. Not only she felt foolish, but her boyfriend had to go out of his way to make things worse! _You idiot_, she wanted to scream- but no, _stay composed, stay composed._

"All done now, gen'ral. Awaiting yer orders," Zack saluted the man.

The man was amused at the fact that, despite his insobriety, Zack recognized him and still managed to follow protocol, albeit rather poorly. The train finally arrived, screeching to a halt. "Get in."

"Aye aye, Captain!" he attempted to walk as straight as he could, reaching the foot of the entrance before falling face first into the train. Aeris followed him in, stepping over his prostrate form, and the man followed, dragging the rest of Zack's body inside. Unlike the sober one, she was anything _but_ amused by her boyfriend's antics. And what was this about 'general', 'captain'? Clearly his brain was still floating in alcohol. She only hoped he wouldn't offend her …guest with his wild blabber.

"He should be fine there. No one usually takes this train," the kook offered, trying to justify his recent action. Well, he probably did occupy a higher rank than Zack, but to then feel it was in his right to drag the poor drunken guy across the floor…? It was a bit cruel of him, Aeris thought. But then, reconsidering, it was equally cruel on Zack's part to humiliate her like that, when she was feeling queasy enough. He could be dragged up the three billion flights of stairs that lead to ShinRa HQ's highest level for all she cared! It served him right.

"If you think I'm going to leap to his defense, you've got it wrong," she snapped, still too wrapped up in vehemence to keep herself in check in front of her strange companion.

"Really? I thought there was more charity in you," the stranger said, clearly enjoying himself. Aeris looked up from where Zack was lying- Crisis, the_ train floor- _meeting those round lenses with a suspicious air about her.

"You thought there was more charity…? And what made you think that? Do I seem like your average, nauseatingly sweet girl trying to scramble her way out of the slums by means of a respectable SOLDIER?" She surprised herself with the harshness of her tone. Maybe she'd been wanting to vent all this time. Maybe she was expressing herself with a little too much passion, now that she had a relatively smart interlocutor who cared to listen, which was increasingly hard to find. Or maybe she should just shut up and try to be reasonable- there was a man lying unconscious on the floor, for Planet's sake.

"You just seem like a woman who doesn't take lightly to injustice," he interrupted her when she tried to elaborate.

She… nodded. What else could she do? That was practically the easiest description that might be given of her- it didn't take genius to figure that out about her. It wasn't like he was seeing through her soul from behind those shades- call it being smart.

"Curious." The train rattled in its rails, and the kook leaned his elbows back on his seat, black trench-coat parting slightly to reveal a satiny, midnight blue shirt, buttons straining with the movement. Warily, the young woman watched him. _So he has a queer kind of taste_, she allowed herself to speculate, resolutely averting her eyes when he peeled the scarf from his bare throat. "So you stubbornly cling to whatever principles your tutors taught you, even while the slum's way of living grates against every moral that man tried to carve into his children's minds?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. Now what? Was he implying that he knew the secret of how to lead the ideal slum-life or something? Everyone had their own view of what the 'ideal' slum life was, according to their experiences, and especially according to their Sector. What was so bad about fighting against bad influences? It wasn't like rubbing shoulders with cut-throats and tramps robbed you of all hope to bring things to a better end; on the contrary. There was a certain solidarity in the slums that a plate-dweller wouldn't understand, a respect of hierarchy that went so much further than the kill-or-be-killed philosophy.

"The army has the same 'grating' effect," she said slowly, careful to keep from saying too much, as she'd been doing in past hours. "There's an irony in writing a letter to your loved ones back home before marching out to kill- just as there's an irony in privileging your own weak kin over the ones with prices on their heads." She took a breath. "You say that morality is something that is _carved _into our minds, like etched in stone. But then you say we cling to it. So what am I supposed to understand? That our learned principles never change, or that we choose to hold onto them?"

The kook listened thoughtfully. "It depends on your experience. Though in the end, I believe it's always a matter of choice."

"Is it? Is it really? Can there still _be_ a choice between compassion and money, when you live in such a place? Between compassion and social hierarchy? Between choosing allies out of respect or out of fear?"

He smiled. "You touch it with a needle. Necessity can make any principle crumble - and you know, I don't think it's a matter of _where_ you live. In the end, necessity always prevails."

"Not with me, it doesn't," she said stubbornly, "There's always a way around it. Always."

"…Hm." Yet another cigarette escalated to his mouth, and he tilted his head back and to the side to let the toxic fumes pour into his lungs, eyes closing behind his shades, the greenish glow fading out of existence. She forgot to look away as his throat seemed to extend from the deep blue collar, the perfect white almost ghastly in comparison with the surrounding grey scale- without thinking, she noted the clutch of his lips on the prized drug, the lithe gloved fingers… how the smoke unfurled from his mouth in spectral curls, lazily caressing his face as they drifted up, up… how his eyes parted only slightly as if a small measure of pain couldn't be excluded in such wantonness.

There was definitely something feminine about those fine lines of his, no doubt about that. But more pressing matters were at hand- she'd forgotten what she'd been talking about, and she'd been gaping, and Zack was still on the floor and Gods, she must've been more tired than she thought, going off her rocker for no reason like this – she really hoped they would be arriving soon. It was the first time that someone's simple presence had made her feel queasy, instead of it being the usual pressure of intelligent conversation. Oh, why wouldn't Zack just wake up and serve as the diversion again, just so that she could get a grip on what little mind she had at these ungodly hours?

The kook's double-moons were flashing in the strobe lights as he watched her. He seemed to want to carry on talking- he probably hadn't noticed how exhausted he was making her. The corner of his lip turned up, and she felt the bottoms drop out of her lungs. _No more huge questions. Come on._

"I'm curious," said he, referring to her faith in morality, "If you constantly skirt around the safest, most vital option… how then can you hope to survive?"

• •

_It's been three weeks and two days now since I was posted here. They told us that the enemy could strike at any moment, but we have only come across the usual mountain dwellers and vagrants. The men here have become restless, eager for blood and have begun to torment passers-by, interrogating them relentlessly as if hoping for the enemy to jump out from what little luggage these wanderers carry. They are knees deep in their own delusions and lust for bloodshed. Some sit in front of the campfire, dreary and lethargic. These men are completely aware of what's to come. Their jaded eyes gaze at the flickering flames as if peering into the happier days, their arms outstretched towards the flame sluggishly, heavy with grief…and yet just right behind them, their shadows dance. As their hosts dawdle away, too exhausted to revel in their last hours, their souls dance in their stead. However, there are others who spend the days drinking and singing songs of fortune day in and day out. Alcohol seems like the only thing the supply trucks bring in nowadays, thanks to them. We've yet to fight, but the way they carouse gives me the impression that we've already won. It does do the morale of these men some good, though, and who's to blame them for drinking all night? _

_It's odd that despite that this encampment is rather small, it's a difficult task to bring everyone together. The bloodthirsty soldiers only want to train and scout, the 'living dead' only mope and drink themselves to sleep, and the more festive group stay near the storage barracks, going in and out for more and more drinks. _

_I have somehow managed to retain my sanity by thinking of her and I have started writing to occupy the time, but it pains me to be apart from her for so long. I would ask for a leave of absence for the holiday, but reports say that the enemy is now on the move. It seems that the chances of war are only escalating higher and higher, and more troops arrive with each passing day._

_In a moment's time, our world will change. _

_It's funny how dispensable we are. We come and go just as snow falls and dissolves. We are fed to believe that each and every snowflake is different, that not one single speck is identical to another. But at the end of the day these small facets of individuality go completely unnoticed. At the end of the day, each flake is lumped together in an infinite expanse of white. _

"It's freezing out there! Hey, it's your shift now. What are you writing there? A letter to the mistress?" A burly man walked into the barracks, snow blanketing his shoulders. He brushed them off and trudged to his bunk.

He shut his journal. "No, I'm just passing the time." His words flowed almost fretfully. He got up, tucking the small pocket journal into his overcoat as he walked out of the barracks.

Two men sat around a campfire, their expressions glum. Their lackluster eyes gazed at the flames, shadows dancing behind them. The living dead - men who had already accepted that their days were numbered, preparing themselves for eternal rest.

• •

The scent of Zack's flat was too overwhelming for her to be comfortable with another man. The aroma was akin to the leftovers of a fantastic orgy, the scent of sweat and other secretions mixed together into some indecent concoction of bodily fluids, though she doubted such was the case. With war approaching ever closer, couples systematically tightened their holds on one another, marrying or remarrying in a desperate attempt to fabricate some deep and inexplicable connection through a titular agreement. It was as if these couples were enraptured by the idea of 'love' whilst listlessly staring at absent spaces, the forgotten bits and pieces ~ jewelry sprawled over the bedside table, letters scrunched up at the backs of drawers, an empty bed undone the day after… The lonely others seemed to only be recording memories of what love looked like in preparation for the days ahead, readying their ghostly shells to shackle themselves in, body and soul.

Not that the idea of being far from her would stop him lifting his head from his obligatory pining and jumping between the legs of the first pretty Wutain he'd get his hands on. He just had too much of a weakness for women… she'd accepted it, hell, she'd _had_ to accept it, even though he was always making sweet promises that he'd change for her, whenever she got grumpy about it. She wasn't about to snivel over their twisted love ties. They suited her fine as they were.

_Except when he pees in front of his superiors, Mother in heaven._

They'd dropped Zack in his bed and the kook was shuffling through the apartment as if it was his own, going behind the bar to take out a bottle of deep, sanguine wine bottled up in blue glass, as well as two wine glasses.

"Wow," Aeris crooned, standing in front of a stylish marine-blue leather armchair, hesitant. "It's a token of intimacy to rummage in a man's wine collection. I didn't know SOLDIERs got so tight between ranks."

Having delicately extricated the crystal stopper, the kook poured them both a glass.

"Oh, but the game of dominance and submission simply _requires_ a level of intimacy to function properly," he grinned crookedly, toying with her as she was with him, "Some believe in cold orders- I prefer it when it's their _lives_ that they surrender to you, not just their services."

"Strange business, sounds like," Aeris laughed, albeit a little nervously. "Zack never talks about it like that."

A glance over the lenses. "Intimacy allows you a better insight into your men's minds: it shows those who dare to speak what they feel, and those too choked by their own pride, too dazzled by what their face looks like when reflected in dead eyes, in cold steel, in blood-streaked windowpanes…" He brought his fingers to his teeth to tug off the gloves. "Some say army is honour, but what is that? I believe to be honourable is to be without passion- and if honour is all that you share with your men, all that you let them believe war is, then it makes for pretty cold mind frames. You don't _feel_ when you're trying to live up to some ideal standard, some image. Your gaze is set too high for you to notice what surrounds you, standing at your level, begging to be noticed."

Aeris frowned. "You're talking about victims? Mercy?" Maybe it was the brightening hour, but she was having a hard time following his train of thought.

"Of course not," The kook stepped around the table, loping elegantly towards her, glass in hand. "I wasn't talking about human eyes, human presences. I was talking about everything that your average arrogant soldier will fail to notice whilst in the heat of battle; every beautiful thing that surrounds him that he cares too little about to take in account. All that counts for him is his honour, his allegiances… his _medals._"

He handed her one of the glasses, before retreating to lean against the bar, enjoying the enrapt expression that she was accidentally letting show.

"Having a standard of honour leaves you with a tight rope to walk on. You ignore everything that's natural and instinctive to keep yourself from falling, even when your body aches and your heart screams- you just put up with it out of pride. It's one of the two extremes that you can let yourself fall into; either this selfish archetype that offers your mind protection from your own nature, or the wild abandon of those who let themselves feel too fully. Anyway, that's what happens when soldiers end up mirroring the attitude of too-strict, too-dry corporals and lieutenants who only know how to crack a whip to have what they want."

Three sips of wine later and Aeris was saying idiotic things like, "Crisis. These people would make pathetic lovers." _And Zack is one of them. No wonder! _But she smiled, knowing she was being unfair. It wasn't as simple as that.

For some reason the kook raised his glass to her, lips twisting into a grin. "_Symbiose! _We are on the exact same wavelength." He leaned toward her, wine dancing in its blue crystal prison. "Making war should be as impassioned and magnificent as making love; which is why there's no sense in the old witty expression that separates the two. Humans are repulsed by the empty rancor that the strict obeying of orders makes them feel, but some are also too indolent to pave their own paths; that's why it's so important for the leaders to captivate them, to speak of the enemy as a fascinating reunion of creatures that live for your destruction- hunters that want your blood, that exist solely to take your life- is it not similar to what you call _love_? You want to take Zack's life, don't you? Stronger than mere possession- you want to melt yours into his, don't you? But isn't that really some form of death? Some form of surrender?"

"You have the man in your grip," Aeris huffed, impatient with all this talk that she was struggling to understand as the wine started to make everything whir around in her head. "Victory without surrender is only for the selfish."

"But being selfish is a way of clinging to life," the kook countered.

"You certainly weren't clinging to life when you served me this wine," Aeris smiled.

"I wasn't being selfish," he counterattacked.

"I shouldn't accept your generosity if it's actually a death-wish that you're too kind to keep for yourself," Aeris said, pointedly setting her glass down on the coffee table. She hoped it would stay put for longer than a handful of seconds- just to keep herself in check, she folded her hands in her lap, on foot tucked under her thigh. Wait. Since when had she sat down and made herself comfortable? She was being too lenient… way too lenient. _Oh, come on. War's coming. Might as well make the most of it. _

The kook coughed a laugh. "_A death-wish that you're too kind to keep to yourself._ You could almost say that was a proposal."

"Marriage?" How did he manage it- bringing all these things together whilst sticking faithfully to a given subject? "You're just bizarre."

Uh-oh; the glass had left the tabletop.

"Speaking of bizarre," Aeris glanced at him from over the crystal rim, pupils dilating, lids drooping only slightly, "I know you probably don't want to reveal yourself, but it's just plain rude to keep your hat on indoors."

She was being _sly_, now was she? Well, that aside, he had been starting to consider the possibility that she'd never ask his identity at all. It was about time.

"Clever of you to give a SOLDIER indirect orders," he sneered, "I might've guessed that you'd already learned about the consequences of _direct_ orders given from a woman to a SOLDIER."

"Not really… I was trying to give an example of tact, so that you might take the hint," Aeris grinned. "Do you really think that you can take the liberty of talking to a woman like you've been talking to me, without even once giving your identity?"

The wine slipped down his throat, and he set his glass behind him on the counter before taking off his glasses- his face drew away from them as though resurfacing from some abyss. Then… he looked over at her, square in the eyes.

"You never asked."

"I shouldn't have to," Aeris huffed, once her heart had stopped skipping beats irritably- those _eyes_. She wasn't up close but, Gods, their suffocating _grasp_ once you'd unwillingly ventured towards them. They bore an almost reptilian luxury, and she was sure she'd find interesting blemishes if she took a closer look.

She found that her eyes were beginning to travel over his face- achingly smooth, like a wax mask with delicately carved lips- his eyes were overshadowed by his brow as well as the rim of his top hat. And that went without mentioning that he was looking at her from underneath- one of those intolerably suggestive gazes that she would've hated, had it not been performed to such perfection. Eyes framed by purplish wreaths of veins, etched into that skin like a crime of colour, though it made his gaze all the more tortuously vindictive.

_Wax mask_. She was half expecting that faultless jawline to start dripping. But there was something more unsettling than the mere flawlessness of his face- just staring at him, the awe gradually seeped away to leave room for the cold sweeping breath of some great ominous feeling, crawling towards her mind like some grotesque creature… it wasn't just the wine that was making her vision tremble as she watched him, unable to rip her eyes away. What was it- what was that _devilry_ that she couldn't seem to detect-

_You never asked._

_I shouldn't have to…_

No…

"…Where do I know you from?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Last Edited:** 7.9.10 Changed Sephiroth's incomprehensible dialog. (It's still weird though.) _Man_, do I allow myself too much freedom with these guys... I'd write weird dialogs all day if I didn't keep myself in check. Gah!

* * *

•**4**•

The light pulsated like an android's dying heart, red dome impregnated with blinding white electricity that pushed against the walls at a hypnotic rhythm; a creature growing and retracting, inhaling, exhaling, staying eerily silent.

It gave her skin a fantastic sheen- her bones glowed red, the shadows carving her flesh into delicate contours deepening… her skin seemed to be a frail net hidden under a veil of red powder, and her hair was slick with bloody reflections.

She didn't even wince any more when she looked at the photos hanging all around her, a grotesque pantomime of distorted faces and tortured bodies, all frozen in their respective poses, their paper worlds swaying slightly as the water dripped from them. Oh, it wasn't that she was used to such horrific displays – the excuse that it was part of her job didn't justify the cold curiosity, the fascination she felt when she took her time to adjust the lense, a few feet away from the agonized model, almost refraining from calling out to him to move a bit further into the light to give her a better shot.

_I'm a journalist. A war journalist. _

_How do you withstand it? How _can_ you?_

_Who are you to immortalize these people's deaths without a blink of an eye?_

Click, _flash_. That's all it took. They said it was better to stop intellectualizing over everything anyway; it had taken her a decidedly _adequate_ amount of time to size up to the task that she'd been appointed to, but afterwards … it was like with SOLDIERs. The most unfortunate began their training at 10 years old… they told the kids it was just a trigger. No big thing. Just something to press, and then what happens, happens. There, now, there's nothing to be upset about. You didn't do anything wrong. You just followed orders, right? That's what good boys and girls do.

She cocked her head. Stylistically speaking, the photos weren't bad. Nice play of lights on this one's face – the trickle of blood gleamed as it cleaved the death mask in half, and those eyes… ah, deliciously haunting. She knew she'd make plenty shiver frightfully with that one.

The doorknob cracked as it turned, and she slipped out of the darkroom in a flutter of _chiffon_ and a tinkle of earrings, banishing from the light of the world her sombre works of art.

_So that means you'll be going to Wutai?_

_Wow! You definitely have to take a bit of time for the sights as well as the war itself._

… did her work really sound as easy as they made it sound? The photographers weren't always perched up where no gun could reach. And it wasn't like they saw and heard the world in the same pixels as their cameras did. But to be able to withstand it, she had to admit, she'd allowed her eyes to see the world in an unfocused vision – she'd permitted the screams to sound digital – did that make her some kind of abhorrent half-machine? Her heart going _tic-tac _instead of _ka-thump_; her eyes as dry as glass… and what if she really was?

Well.

At least the photos looked alright.

• •

_Lace curtains held up by a delicate hand, eyes riveted on the road leading out to the Wild. Lips parted, humidity glinting on the rosy flesh where she'd been nibbling to calm herself. A hand on the lithe waist, fingers under the fabric of her clothes, touching cold skin… it was so quiet …_

Snowflakes splattered on the flat of his blade as he performed a faultless spin, blade outstretched, steel ringing in the icy air and whistling a ghastly tune. Everywhere around him was reality blanketed in white – be it fog or snow or simple atmosphere – everything was slightly erased, only partly present, on the verge of vanishing altogether. Such fantasy was his thoughts as he spun endlessly, striking imaginary beings made of white silence, his muscles straining, webbed over by veins that pulsated with life – every movement, every swing of the arm, every violent leap seemed to be a call to arms destined for life itself, as if he could lure Her out.

"_You should come back here and help your mama instead of trying to pull your fiancé out of a square of glass!" A voice came from the living room. The young woman didn't budge; didn't even let show that she'd heard. There was a squeal of childish laughter, and a second later there were her nephews tumbling into the kitchen, rolling over the tiles and the chairs and each other, biting and kicking and gasping for breath. The woman vaguely turned her head – her sister came barging in after her riotous offspring, gathering the boys up with the ease of one whose arms are used to wriggling burdens; she ushered them into the living room, closing the door behind her, blowing a curl away from her flustered face. _

_The sister watched the young woman for a few seconds. Snowflakes fluttered by the window on the other side, where everything looked so calm, frozen in repose. _

"_You should busy yourself with something, honey," the sister offered softly. "You're lucky you don't have kids! I don't know _what_ they'd end up looking like if they ever disturbed you in your moments."_

_The young woman loosely crossed her arms. Her face was as expressionless as the horizon out there – her lashes lowered every once in a while, but otherwise, she stood as still as a frozen cascade. _

_The sister walked up to her slowly. How many days had it been? The letters hadn't stopped, and yet the young woman's heart seemed to have ground to a halt. The sister snaked her arms around her sibling's waist from behind, nuzzling her neck. Nothing tangible could explain it – it was a feeling, the feeling of teetering on the edge of something whilst being blindfolded. _

"_Stop worrying. It'll be okay."  
_

• •

_There was snow, whirling. A window, reflecting the red and green dots of the machinery. There was nothing on the other side, only blackness and slowing piling snow on the outer sill but she obstinately kept her chin up, chimera's eyes fixed to the glass. Dawn meant death, and she certainly didn't want it to creep up on her._

_So she waited. Arms encircling her knees as she trembled in the corner of her cell. She was only five. She didn't know anything about this place; nor about the things they planned to do with her. But she knew that they were nasty people, them and their white gloves that burnt her skin and their paper masks that made them look like oversized, green rodents: their mouthless voices were terrible to her ears, like the voices of angry gods, deep-throated and always speaking scary languages- numbers and code names and what have you! How was she supposed to "be okay"; how was she supposed to "stop crying" with them always looming around her, creatures of white and green, gliding across high-ceiling chambers and twiddling with enormous machines with their fingers flying as swiftly as a blind man reading his own special, tangible alphabet. _

_She was only five, and there was a growing stain of light blue in the sky outside._

_She was only five…_

… _footsteps approached. A door opened._

"_Hello, darling. Time for your morning examinations." _

The memory reared its head in her mind as she tried to analyze the feeling his eyes were provoking in her. She had _sworn_ never to think of those days again… she had just taken what understanding they had given her of her own perceptions, so as to trust her instinct whenever danger approached – and now her subconscious seemed to be at a loss of how to communicate the message, sending her the images instead of the feelings themselves. She _wasn't_ scared… was it the wine painting flashbacks in burgundy on the wall of her mind, or was it a hint for her to make the connections?

Aeris took her time watching the young man whose gaze was tragically aged compared to that smooth white skin. Not one blemish, not one scratch – Zack had had to beg her to shave him all over so that the blows would hurt less during training sessions, and he always came back with wonderful abstract art of blue and purple and green blotches all over his muscles. Yet this snake-eyed creature – he had the skin of a little girl! Not that she'd let that out anyway. You can never be sure of what your limits truly are when you're with a person who can set things alight just by _looking_ at them.

He was smoking. Again. Maybe he knew that he was dreadfully sexy when he smoked, or maybe it was because her silence was beginning to unnerve him… _him?_ She doubted she could be source of any sort of disturbance to him. She hardly even counted on him remembering who she was once the night was over.

_But… _I_ remember him from somewhere, in some crazy way. _

"It's very probable that you saw me at Zack's training sessions," was the measly reply he'd given her. But she knew there was more. No doubt about it.

Ah, but she loved this wine – her mind was coding and unraveling every little confusion she felt, every little awkwardness that, in her sobre state, she never knew how to justify.

"What do I look like?" she slurred, wondering just how far from sobre she'd got.

"I… wouldn't try to get up if I were you," the kook smiled. Damn him! He'd had just as much wine as her and yet there he was, standing in his satin shirt with not one crease out of place, exhaling white coils that dissipated as they poured from his lips.

"So when are you getting out of here, seeing as you've successfully incapacitated me?" she leered at him crookedly, unable to keep her head straight. She talked alright for a drunkard, actually… if it wasn't for her damn head, she would've probably sounded quite credible.

He looked bored. Glancing over at her, she detected a hint of impatience, as though he was still waiting for her to pick up on something… _but what, Holy be damned?_ She wished she knew what he was thinking while gazing strangely at this wretch of a woman.

"So you'd let me go without struggling a little harder to obtain my identity?"

"Struggling!" Aeris lifted her lithe arms to illustrate quite accurately her helplessness, lime eyes darkening as her pupils dilated at a hypnotic rhythm.

"Ah, caught in an ambush," the kook smiled again, pushing away from the counter and loping elegantly towards her, not even knocking anything over in his progression. "Young ladies never resist…" He extended a bent leg and let himself down right next to her. "… a glass of good wine."

The leather cushion lowered under his weight, and if she'd let herself go, she would've toppled right into his lap. Hah! Now what a sight that would've been.

"Well- "

Oops. She'd forgotten about the little physical weakness the wine had wrought – thankfully he moved an arm just in time to knock her back before she sprawled over his thighs. She silently fumed as he smirked discreetly, turning away, his arm on the sofa behind her.

"_Well_," she started again, eyebrows skyrocketing comically as she tried as hard as she could to have control over _something_; her tongue, at least. "You're not going to catch me that easily. I never fall out of touch with myself when I'm drunk; that way, you won't be getting any overreactions from me, _sir_."

"What do you mean… overreactions?" He looked falsely hurt. Another game, it seemed… would he never stop? Or was he really some incarnation of the Joker – some deranged pataphysician taking senseless joy in manipulating whatever he got his gloved hands on?

"Well that's the big game, right? You get a woman all worked up, all sentimental, with a bit of help from wine if you don't have the _balls_ to try and understand them beforehand, and then you sit back and watch the fireworks. Or the waterworks."

He was watching her amusedly, sitting back, a satire in a satin shirt.

"I'm afraid you're already losing touch with yourself," he laughed his strange laugh. "I thought wine would expand your senses- we could've continued talking like we were."

"That's a cliché. I'm not going to spout philosophy when I'm probably not even capable of blowing bubbles correctly. I don't know how you men do it; speak ridiculously wonderful things when you've just infused your blood with alcohol."

"Oh, so Zack _does_ have some qualities!" The kook passed a palm over his nape, grazing her with his elbow. "And, you're wrong when you say philosophy isn't like blowing bubbles. It's the same concept."

"I'm sick and tired of philosophy. At least bubbles _stay_ entertaining." Aeris brought her knees up to her chin, albeit a little clumsily, pulling at her skirt so that it hid her long legs. "And, I don't know about you, but I'm certainly not going to notice Zack's other qualities as long as he doesn't drop his damned obstinacy."

"Obstinacy?" He seemed intent on making conversation with her, and though he made a point of understanding the things that she usually bottled up in order to offer her a chance of relief, she found herself quite suddenly empty of all energy. Zack… now that was one touchy subject. She'd tossed _that_ bottle into the sea of everything she could not understand; he was venturing out to fetch it at his own peril.

"Obstinacy, yes! The war is useless… there must be a good reason the authorities aren't letting the real reasons out; I'm sure it's because ShinRa know they're wrong. And, it's silly to die for causes that you don't even believe in. I'm telling you," Here she spun around to stare at him in the eye, "if the women ever got a say in all this, in ShinRa's dirty work, I bet there wouldn't be all this useless violence."

"Soldiers never die for the same causes they fight for," the kook told her, "It's always personal. Always. And, by the way," He stubbornly refused to budge even as her eyes bore into his, "why so afraid of death?"

"I'm not afraid of death."

"Says the drunkard."

"No, honestly. I'm not. It's the last thing I'd be afraid of."

"Then you think it's purely negative."

"I'm just saying, there's nothing worse than a silly death. You can be ridiculous all your life, for Holy's sake; but death is something precious."

An eyebrow, twitching. "… You _are_ still drunk, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. I wouldn't even be talking to you if I wasn't. I'd have run away hours ago."

"Hm..." He was smiling again.

"Do you have to sit so close?"

Now he was caught. "Who… me?" Of course, he managed to stay composed, and impossibly elegant in his pose, an eyebrow raised and an arm extended on the back of sofa.

"_No_, of course not _you_. The guy we were talking about."

"You mean Death?"

"We were talking about him?"

He _refused_ to stop smiling. What was this cynical humour his, anyway?

"Yes. Which means _you're_ in a bit of trouble."

His amusement seemed to stem from something hidden from her, some inside-joke. She fidgeted, uneasy with his humour.

"Or maybe you meant Zack." Maybe he'd detected her discomfiture. Chivalrous of him to deter the subject. "Seemed to me like he was the one who was going to be in trouble."

"The wine, it's…" she vaguely said, her eyes drifting… before she suddenly snapped back into her rage as suddenly as though someone had pressed a button. Her eyes refocused on his with a brutality that almost stunned him. "You agree with me, don't you? About the war?"

"Yes."

She frowned. "But then- but then _why - _"

"I don't, however, agree with you when you talk of 'silly deaths'. Imagine this," He was leaning forward more and more… but so succinctly she hadn't yet noticed. His obscure, heady scent – perfume or natural, she couldn't tell - was starting to add to the effect of the wine; like a drug it unconsciously attracted her, and she found herself dangerously forgetting to draw back. "Zack, agonizing on the battlefield…"

"What?" she yelped; Crisis, no need to be drunk to recognize a madman-

"No, hear me out." His gaze was steady, yet he still had that corner of his lip curled upward. "I'm not trying to be masochistic here - "

"Oh, sure you're not!"

"Mmh… what was that about overreactions?" Was she supposed to _laugh_? "Just play along. Don't take things so seriously."

Ah. Another game.

"So, Zack is lying with a beautiful red curl over his skin where the sword cleaved - "

"_Damnit,_ mister."

"Alright, alright, no details. He's feeling Death approaching… do you really think he'll think of the glory of a SOLDIER in those last minutes? Do you really think that would be the first thing one thinks about? I don't believe in global faith- because in the end, if that's all you care about, it's probably because you've got nothing else that you feel requires the same love."

Somehow, that word didn't quite fit in his mouth.

"No doubt, his last thoughts would be happy ones… because he'd know that, in Death, he'd possess you completely. No stagnation to slowly corrupt your love. The souvenir of something is always more cherished than the thing itself, after all… do you realize the importance he'd have for you, then? Death wouldn't be so terrible for him… from a selfish point of view."

She forgot to close her mouth. That _was_ a very selfish point of view… but, since they both knew Zack so well, they both knew that any objection would be worthless. It was true; it was all true. Zack, he who required a person's complete attention, he who had only ever wanted someone who accepted to _belong _to him… that was love, to him. Complete and utter surrender. And in death… what a sublime victory he'd have, indeed. Was she truly so weak before these feelings he had kindled? Did he really have the certainty, in order to be so fearless before death, that she'd crumble?

He tilted his head to the side. "I thought we had said no overreactions…?"

What? Why did he say that? She was fighting to keep composed, here. And why was he extending his hand toward her face… his fingers crushing the warm pearl and spreading humidity over her cheek surprised her at first; she thought she'd vowed never to cry over wars again. But she'd held that promise – these tears were for something else entirely.

"So you know him as well as I do," she murmured, head lowered as his fingers curled against her skin. "…but why do you have to put it like that?"

"This isn't what I wanted you to understand," he said, voice so deep that it almost reached the colour of the marine-blue leather. "What I wanted you to picture is the barren wasteland of a soldier's mind as he tries to grope for something to hold onto, while the medics arrive – he's got to feel there's something that's worth the pain he's enduring. There are moments when humans should realize what it means to make _use_ of life in order to justify how desperately they cling to it. Though, I find that coming into range of such realizations can be pretty dangerous, because you see… ultimately, there is no meaning. There is no use. There is just this beautiful silence; and if you don't dare to acknowledge that particular truth before Death presents it before you, the shock will only be so much more brutal – you won't have had time to find something to animate your silence…"

His voice was as ultra-violet as her eyes as she fought a losing battle to keep the tears from breaking away, etching crooked lines down her cheeks.

"I don't understand what you're saying," she gasped, feeling as though a great black hole was beginning to spin in her lower body, sucking into its depths every little morsel of her body- every little morsel of her sanity. It had felt so good at first – she didn't understand… or should she try to savour it, savour this cavernous feeling that only craved to be filled? Savour dissatisfaction like all those demurred poets seemed to do?

"Yes you do," the kook whispered, his face a white blur blending with the room's progressively fading colours. "Or you wouldn't feel like you do. You wouldn't feel that hollow wind. You wouldn't suffer such…" His eyes were jagged tourmaline asymmetry. "…yearning."

She stared at him, neck extended, tears dropping from her chin to spatter on the firm domes of her bosom, crushed by her corset as it was. Delicate chestnut curls disrupted the harmony of her pale, pale skin, coiling around her neck, her jawline, her cheek…

Gods, but he would've taken advantage of her if she wasn't as deliciously lost as she looked; though something told him those eyes weren't as vacant as they seemed.

"The person that errs in your silence is the one for whom you would gladly die; he inhabits your Nothing, he knows you well enough to have transcended all of your barriers to finally accede to your purest form…"

She drank his words, the spinning feeling taking over her entire body so that very soon she was far too hot and dizzy to be comfortable; was it him, was it the wine, was it what he was saying, or some terrific combination that was making her feel like her mind was staggering along on stilts… and yet, from her giddy height she found that his words were beautiful. They rang so _clearly_ in her ears; like she didn't even have to make an effort to understand exactly what he was illustrating.

Maybe it was just because every time she heard a semblance of truth, its rarity, its uniqueness moved her… or maybe she was just being ridiculously emotive. But the kook had such an elegance with words, such natural eloquence that she'd never yet experienced with a man in her own age-span… she didn't want to protest when that hand curled around her shoulder; she didn't want to brush away his fingers as they moved up her neck, so silkily, _so_ slowly.

How do you push away the only thing that has ever corresponded to your state of mind, even if you'd loathe going back to that particular state?

How do you push away the only one who –

_eyes glowing in shadows that the red lights cast – lean hands hovering over the machinery, typing the security code as the alarms screeched and echoed and made their eardrums melt – a queer voice in her ear, a strange pull at her heart as though Death was reminding her of some sinister promise – _

the only one who knows why you're running, and instead of making you stop to try and make you see sense, opens the doors for you as you race on –

His lips were just by her ear.

"Let me in your silence… just this once." His words were beads of ice, rolling down her spine; her hands wedged themselves between her fidgeting thighs, lower lip catching between her teeth. "I wouldn't know what it's like… having something to die for."

His lips nudged hers, taking her by surprise, the warmth engulfing her as he leaned over her; as though he was asking permission, though his hands seemed to be electrifying every part of her; this was forbidden, it was immoral, and yet nothing felt so _wrong_ about it, to her- or at least, she had never before talked to a man of his caliber, so she couldn't possibly imagine the dangers of a seductive tone of voice.

It was in the second where he deepened his kiss that a spark of rationality flared- at that precise moment, a long strand of silver hair fell across her cheek, and she had a sudden immense doubt.

_No_… _that's impossible._

His skin, his breath, his very presence surrounding her bore a heady scent of rich wine with a musky underlay…

_Only one way to find out…_

His teeth closed on her lower lip as he moved to straddle her, a hand cupping her face as he ran his open mouth along hers, agonizingly slowly, their breaths mingling, eyes half-shut…

She let a hand drift up his arm, and then just as he closed his eyes, she swiped at his top-hat, knocking it over, spilling silver everywhere; like fiberglass threads his hair fell across his face, fanned over his shoulders, tumbled down her throat as he leaned over her.

Her heart caught in her throat; adrenaline set her veins afire, and yet all she could do was clutch at his satin shirt, fingers slipping, a moan unintentionally escaping from her lips as his fingers danced over her skin, following the curves of her bosom, and she could feel a smile breaking out on his lips.

"I know you," she whispered – she would've _whimpered_ if she'd been that helpless, but strangely, she wasn't as panicked as she should've been. Blame it on being drunk; she'd start feeling guilty and terrified when she was sobre again. In a way she had known him all along… Besides, there _was_ a way out of this… right?

"Of course you know me," said the General, saccharine intonations only pushing the mindless ecstasy further.

"You have a number on the inside of your arm," she tried to say, though it came out in a breath as his hand fumbled down the front of her corset, coming to her thighs, a palm sliding across the flimsy skirt in search of bare skin.

"_Burnt_ into my skin," he said, smiling slyly, and she caught his wrist before he could have too much freedom.

The face that appeared at commemorations and military ceremonies on TV, the one who never got interviewed because of some mysteries of the security department and who was the most well-known figure in Midgar… it was hovering above her now, eyes boring into her own.

"…I always wanted to have the chance to ask you…"

That face; the cold child, the even colder adolescent who would lope past her glass cage, staring in and addressing to her strange looks that she never knew quite how to interpret… The one who had held her by the wrist as they ran across countless corridors… the one who had slammed the neglected emergency escape door after shouting at her to get out of there and never ever let herself get caught again…

Suddenly his hands were gone, as was the suffocating heat; he was standing in front of her, gazing down at her, a smile playing around his lips. White poured down the sides of his face, pooled over his shoulders, outlined his satin-clad arms.

"The time of which you speak is something I don't discuss," he said coolly.

"Me neither. But- "

"Where's my hat?"

"Just there. Er. There. But, could I ask – could I at least try to convince you to - "

"Absolutely not."

His fingers reached for her face, touching her lips so that her next plea died before it ever got anywhere.

"No more questions. It's getting rather… early."

"Do you always leave your women confused beyond imagination, or did I just seem too gullible for you to resist?" Now she was angry. Oh, how delicious!

"I'll be honest, your gullibility was a treat," he smiled, bending over to retrieve his hat; "But that is a conversation we'll have to keep for later." Straightening, he twisted his hair into a knot and hid it in the lacquered depths of his top hat, before taking his shades from the counter and slipping them on. And then… he turned to her, eyebrow raised, never losing that devastating elegance.

"I believe it's my turn to accompany you...?"

• •

The streets were morose and grey in the early morning; the dawn spread over the sky like whitish fungus, a tangled web saturating the monochrome. The kook obstinately gazed out of the train window, watching the sky for as long as was permitted; after that, the train plunged into the darkness of a tunnel, and the windows were splattered with obscurity. Nothing but dizzying electric lights racing past every now and then. And there were the neons in the train, vaguely flickering and pouring strange, greenish light into the compartment.

They were alone.

Her skin glowed oddly in the dirty light; her hair had a very strange hue indeed. It was a good thing she didn't open her eyes, else someone might've mistaken her for some nymph, some strange green creature. He contemplated the junction between her throat and shoulder, tendons straining against skin as she unconsciously leaned her head against his shoulder; her lips were parted slightly as she slept, the rest of her face veiled by wayward chestnut strands. She was so _friable… _and yet so strangely rooted in her own head, her own world. She was as mentally solid as she was weak on the outside ; there wasn't a single woman that resembled her, if he compared his past experiences, futile though they 'd been.

He remembered her; he especially remembered wondering why on earth they seemed so intent on keeping her captive. What was about her it that fascinated such an important number of scientists? From the first time he'd set eyes on the poor, shivering specimen, huddling pathetically in the corner of her glass cage, he'd decided to take part in the adults' strange game. She intrigued him that much… and yet, he had never imagined that he'd ever meet her again outside the laboratory.

He watched her, silently moved by the irony of fate; here they were, years later, one sleeping on the shoulder of the other; she would've probably liked such comfort as this when he had helped her to escape. But women are like that, they make themselves desired, hoping to steal the keys to their love-slave's secret garden in the heat of false intimacy... Which was why he held onto his own with the cold obstinacy of a dead man's grip. Women received too much for what they gave; it was time they earned the comforts they so dearly sought.

This creature had earned hers in a grand way; the simple fact of keeping tactful and light, being satisfied by the content and not caring in the slightest for abstract things like identity… hah! She hadn't even called him by name.

_Hmm, then again, perhaps it's better that way; whenever your name graces strange lips, they often turn blue in the second that follows._

The train shook in its rails. She leaned into him, hands vaguely upturned on her lap, body completely limp.

The train shook again, her leg knocked against his… he watched stoically as the back of his hand momentarily pressed into her dress, feeling the warmth of her thigh through the light fabric. _Mysterious little creature_… How odd, that a woman from the slums might move him so- all the others were in his memory just a long line of half-erased masks hanging on a string, all of them ready to drop at the slightest trauma, the slightest shake of his head.

She closed her mouth, shifting slightly, the top of her head against his throat, almost beneath his chin. He caught the scent of a vagrant, white fragrance… and he found himself imagining her delicately applying the crystal stopper on her wrists, behind her ears, her face averted, bearing an expression of beautiful indifference…

He could never have guessed that Zack had such refined taste.

• •

The front door was locked. He already felt claustrophobic in the absence of dawn, artificial lights aggressing his eyes wherever he looked; and now the front door was locked, and he could feel her shivering against him. Time to bury the night, the heavy thoughts, the sweet speculations… he had a hunch that she wouldn't forget the essential parts of the night, but that some things would probably _conveniently_ slip from her mind. Which somewhat justified what he did next; he'd seen her putting away her keys in her inner coat pocket… and they were just what he needed.

Her body heat engulfed his hand; he felt her recoiling as he reached for the keys, icy fingers overlapping the border of her corset and touching her skin. She was burning hot; he could swear that those amethyst veins on her neck had darkened with the wine. Ah, it had been slightly cruel of him, he admitted it… but these were nights of experimentation, slotting mindless events between the numbers as the final hour approached.

Opening the door, he carried her inside; _first the man, now his woman- _good thing there wasn't a kid involved or his patience might've worn very thin indeed_ -_the darkness swallowed them both, and he hardly even squinted as he made his way to the stairs and took her up to her bedroom.

He probably had more chances than Zack to see her in flesh again, and talk to her once the war was over… but why would he want that? They belonged to completely different worlds; though he felt that that particular thought might bear heavier meaning, for now there was the simple social hierarchy that separated them, and also the fact that her flesh was warm, and his was perpetually as smooth and cold as steel. Steel skin that never cracked, steel bones that rippled with metallic reverberations as something akin to life beat against the gleaming walls of a steel heart.

Maybe if he had good reason to, he'd see her again. Maybe to elucidate their plagued childhoods; maybe to find out just how she managed to stand such a wretch as Zack… or maybe just to contemplate her over another glass of wine, sharing thoughts, sharing nothing, and everything, caught in the rites of insomnia.

He set his top-hat on the bedside table, sitting on the edge of the bed and feeling the side of her body lean against his back as the mattress lowered. Ah, Wutai… his fingers came up to press his eyes. In several hours, he'd be back up on the plate, standing before entire road-lengths of fidgeting, blue-clad ranks, yelling encouragement to his men till his voice became hoarse, hand on his sword sheath, wind tearing at his hair and trench coat… the president gloating from his high ground at his military force, seeing each sweating individual as a number on a long list, and never noticing anything else than the marine blue uniform. Never noticing the golden chain glimmering in the harsh sun just beneath a collar; never noticing the shines on the soldiers' cheeks; never noticing the smell of fear, the clinging perfume of cigarettes, of women, of rich, dark wine…

_No more time to waste._

_Immorality calls…_

_• •  
_


	5. Chapter 5

**a&n:** Wow, it's been ages... sorry, collaborations can get rather slow. If you're still there, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and thanks so much for sticking around! Thank you so much for those who have added _Adagio_ to their alert/fav list; even mute encouragement is lovely. ;)

* * *

•**5**•

He took the train back again simply to buy a bit more time. A bit more time to wonder about her, to savor the lingering scent of flowers on his jacket from where she was pressed against when he held her fragile form in his arms – the only parting gift she could offer him. In a few short hours, her gift would disappear and be replaced by the stench of gunpowder and blood, but there was no time to think of such things. He took in what he could, refraining his urge for another cigarette in fear of ebbing out that delicious scent. Her scent was so powerful thoughts of the previous hours cascaded into his conscience like a collage of still pictures; her slight figure outlined under thin sheets in her living room, her vibrant pink coat contrasting against the metallic grays and blacks of the Midgar slums, the abashed expression on her face as she witnessed her lover's drunken debauchery, her fatigued countenance in conversation after several glasses of wine. What he wanted most was to capture that strange emotion when he placed his lips on hers, yet the memory, though just as clear as the rest, was not lucid enough to satisfy him. He wanted more than just a visual memory of the moment. It was a battle he knew he could not win, for such things could not be replicated. It was only in that one moment in time that those strange, overwhelming emotions enervated and invigorated his entire being as if being encumbered by pure mako, by the lifestream itself and every single nerve in his body was being ravaged by that essence.

No, perhaps his memory had already been tainted with time, that that moment was no longer impartial to the myths and lore that captivated the inner workings of his imagination and was slowly being etched into a beautiful caricature for him to relish upon.

But is a being, which was born for the sole purpose of becoming the perfect killer, capable of such emotions?

The being in question was now drifting into slumber in the empty compartment. He was not fatigued in body for he was used to long in harsher, more arduous conditions, but his mind had been overworked by this little slum girl who smelled of fresh flowers. "That couldn't have been perfume," he mumbled, and his body sank into the wall as his conscience drifted away.

•

The fog scattered like velvet curtains unveiling the sun in the distant horizon. Its muted radiance caught the dewdrops that lingered on flowers and blades of grass, chasing away the darkness of night as it infused the violet landscape with the first glimmers of morning.

Two trucks emblazoned with the Shinra banner were parked to the side of a beaten dirt path just short of a forest heading south. From the forest emerged a young boy with silver hair flowing over his face, splotches of fresh blood on his face and clothes. In his left hand was an even more bloodstained sword that equaled near the entire length of his body. His expression seemed indifferent to the fact that he was smothered in gore, yet his left hand trembled as he paced toward the two trucks. A man dressed in uniform hobbled behind him. He was struggling to keep a dignified stride, one hand applying pressure to a deep gash on his upper thigh with the help of a reddened cloth.

The child reached the van first and was greeted by another soldier, who bowed his head as they crossed paths. The child handed him the sword and the soldier retreated and set off to the wounded soldier behind him.

"Crisis, what happened?" the soldier mumbled as he heaved his companion's shoulder to offer him support.

"That kid," the wounded soldier huffed, using extraneous effort to force the words out of his mouth with each sharp gasp, "he's not normal. They… He…" The words barely squeezing out of his throat, he reached a hand out towards his partner, his eyes rolling upward as he ran out of breath and fell unconscious; the other soldier heaved him up and dragged him toward the van.

"He's been poisoned!" The soldier yelled as he set him down. He reached into a compartment on his belt for an antidote as he removed the bandage from the man's leg.

"Useless," the child jeered as he stepped into the back of one of the trucks.

Inside waiting for him was an eerie old man in a white lab coat gazing intently into a small pod.

"Have you completely cleared the path?" the man queried keeping his eyes fixed on the contents of the small pod.

"What's so important about that little kid?" the child asked in defiance.

The man turned around, for once offering a piece of his precious attention to his silver-haired protégé. His gaze was as cool as a Mako fountain – clearly he would accept no questioning. "Is the path clear?" he asked again, deceitfully slowly.

"Yes," the child answered, absolutely unfazed by his superior's manners. For a child of about 10 he was decidedly imperturbable; without further ado he jumped up and sat cross-legged on one of the benches lining the inside of the truck. He could feel the familiar writhing of some sort of icy fluid in his veins as he tried to push down the battle fever; knowing what was coming, he stretched out his arm towards the man in the lab coat. The man turned to him with a small device, pierced the tender inside of his arm and waited a moment to see the results.  
The numbers rode ever upward as the child grew and became more and more accustomed to battle- now they were bubbling uncontrollably and refusing to lower even as the child tried to steady his breathing.

The man smiled crookedly, before returned to his business.

"Good, good."

•

The shouting was horrendous. Sitting in the snow with his little hands pressing against his ears, he tried to block out the noise- he kept his eyes wide open as he saw jagged figures cutting up the light that flowed from the windows.

"Will your humanity ever cease trickling away from you, you demented fool? You don't even know the damn consequences of what you're doing!" he heard a man yelling.

"Please, let us talk," a woman's voice pleaded, "We could cooperate. We could-"

"Let my wife go, Hojo! I'm warning you!"

There was strange, sickening laughter. "_You're_ warning _me?_ Let's see just how well you can back that up, Gast."

There were sudden shrieks, and a man was shouting, yelling, and then just as the chaos was beginning to make the silver-haired child want to close his eyes, he saw blood splattering the lace curtains that hung before the windows.

His eyes were wide open now. Nothing could make him want to shut this out, even though his chest was heaving and his breaths were becoming short.

_Gast?_

The shrieking had escalated, and then quite abruptly they changed to despairing groans- someone had probably gagged the poor woman.

"Take her out."

And then the door was kicked open, and the silver-haired child watched with his back against the truck wheel as two armed SOLDIERs dragged a struggling woman out of her house; her hair was loose and lashed wildly around her tear-soaked face as she fought against them- she'd spat out her gag, and her teeth were set in an expression of anguished fury. They took her to the trucks, and as they past the huddled child, the woman glanced down at him, her wrists bloody in the grips of the men at her sides, abstract webs of green spanning in her eyes.  
He couldn't hide himself from her- the mere look that she gave him was enough to have him enrapt, mesmerized and yet terrified at the same time.

"Be careful with the child!" he heard Hojo shouting, and he lost the woman's gaze as they pulled her into the truck that he was sitting by- his head snapped toward the door of the house they'd just raided, and he watched as a soldier headed out, scowling as he kicked away something in the house that was trying to hold him back and running towards the truck, a wide-eyed toddler in his arms.

The silver-haired boy was about to follow the soldier and child into the truck, but then a hand slapped against the doorframe of the house, fingers dripping blood and slipping on the wood as a man heaved himself up against it. His other arm was draped around his torso, and he watched with indescribable pain on his face as the truck started up.

"_No…"  
_

The man's gaze met the boy's, and for a second it seemed as though there was a ghost of smile of his lips. And then the slither of fierce life that had spurred him to such efforts finally succumbed to the bullet that had lodged in his lung, suffocating him, and he slipped pathetically from the doorframe to the ground, half in the snow, bloodied hands staining the beautiful white.

"Sephiroth!" barked Hojo as he saw the child crouching behind his former tutor, clean hands clutching the dead man's slippery fingers, eyes fixed on Gast's sightless ones.  
The child did not look up.

Once back in the truck, he sat down next to the soldier who held the little girl on his lap. The green-eyed woman was on the opposite bench, her hands tied and resting in her lap, her gaze frightfully steady as she stared at her child. It was like they were sharing a solemn, silent vow, their expressions undecipherable. The silver-haired child couldn't fathom why the damned toddler wasn't even dribbling or screaming about something futile- was that part of why Hojo was so fascinated by it? Because he wouldn't have to worry about playing the ever-present cooing nurse as he left it in the hands of machines that were worth the entire city of Midgar? That couldn't be it. There had to be something else, something… dire.

He gazed at the woman, admiring how headstrong she was, how noble even when she was shackled and robbed of nearly all that was most precious to her. Sighing, he let himself relax into the truck's steady rumbling, closing his eyes and trying to melt away from the sour-tasting atmosphere.

•

A lump of furry heat curled itself into a ball by her stomach, the loud purring tugging her gently back into consciousness; her lashes slid open, and as the formless colours around her began to become more focused, she managed to make out a very fat cat all snuggled in the hollow of her belly, resembling in colour and corpulence a glob of custard.

"Aeris! Breakfast! It's getting really late, honey," came a shout from downstairs.

Was it? How long had she been sleeping? Frowning, she tried to undo the muddle of last night that sat in her mind in a big obstinate knot; she could only remember fragments for the moment, but the feelings came more eagerly than the images. It was just like waking up from a godawfully fantastic dream, not remembering an ounce of it, and being frustrated because the godawfully fantastic feeling doesn't seem to have a reason to be.

Her frown deepened as her mental cleaning-up seemed to press on her brain a little too hard and give her a dull, thumping pain.

"Ugh," she managed to groan, bringing a hand to her forehead. She couldn't have been _drunk_, now could she? _Damnit_. She had promised herself… But the taste in her mouth wasn't foul at all, not like the disgusting taste you get after a night of binge drinking ; she closed her eyes again, bringing her knees up closer so that the cat was starting to get a little crushed between her thighs and arms. Shutting out the typical sounds of late morning, she relaxed, opening her mind to the memories.

_Sephiroth.  
_

It resounded in her head as if someone had spoken it- her eyes cracked open. And then, the groggy feeling intensified as a flood of sensation came back to her; silken strands pouring between her fingers and down her throat, a burning humidity on her lips, her heartbeat pulsating wildly against his palms as he held her wrists – red, whirring before her eyes, her throat raw after so much wine…

_Sephiroth. _The name knocked at the doors of her conscience, begging inspection. But she couldn't bring herself to formulate some kind of logical progression of how the night had been; how had it come to that? She would never have let a stranger weaken her defenses. Never.  
Slowly, she uncurled herself from her fetus position and sat up, inspecting herself as the covers fell away from her. She remembered a vague feeling of cold, of grogginess as they'd sat in the train on the way back- he'd had this queer expression that wasn't quite a smile as he sat in perfect silence beside her, abnormal eyes never turning her way. And she'd been _so_ tired…  
She'd learned never to look a Turk or a SOLDIER in the eye; never to act differently than coldly polite- it was the slums here, it was the spectacle of nailing Virtue to the cross every single day in order to get by one's business without having to worry about Her looking over your shoulder with a frown- but there was still a certain code to abide by. Never try to hide the misery. Never try to be more than you are; truth is the only thing that will help you down here. The bitter truth of having one's body as sole resource; the truth of the tired, nerve-racked faces, of the children scavenging in the junk-piles for things to sell off, of the greedy knives in the dark.

The truth of kind strangers having wicked purposes.

Looking down at her loosened corset, she attested to this one at least; he had weakened her with words as fine as the liquor they'd tasted, and then… had he carried her down? Had it been his fingers that had pulled at the ribbon to allow her more room to breathe?

She blushed, quickly getting rid of the corset and freeing her ribs and chest from its gaping steel carcass- hurrying to her wardrobe she slipped into a short white dress, hoisted blue stockings up her legs hurriedly, tied her hair into a high ponytail. She stopped before the mirror for a second, her eyes scouring her sleek legs, a bit too skinny to her taste- sharp shoulders, sharp chin, and those eyes that seemed far too wide for her own face. She bit her lip, eyes sliding up and down her anxious reflection. Did she look _that _gullible, damnit?

Elmyra was smiling as she heard her daughter rushing down the stairs and scraping a chair across the floor, sitting down for breakfast.

"I heard some… _agitation_ last night," the elder woman teased, her voice mischievous. "I do hope you're awake enough to get some work done before going to Joey's."

"Why are we going to Joey's?" Aeris responded automatically, her heart thumping for absolutely no reason. The stairs, probably.

"TV. He's practically gathering the entire sector into his living room to watch the ceremony up above." When Aeris looked over at her quizzically, the elder woman sighed. "The SOLDIERs' departing speech? Their last minutes in Midgar before taking off? Ring a bell?"

"Oh." She didn't have her head set on quite right. That, or she'd willingly chosen to omit this event from her mind. Zack was sure to be standing there in the rows, exposed to the sunlight filtering down through the stained sky… weren't these the kind of events where the civilians flocked the streets, straining against the guards and yelling incomprehensible things at their loved ones? Weren't these the kind of events where everyone seemed to be losing their minds and believing that this was really what ShinRa called it, a_ ceremony_, a celebration of departure- fooling themselves that the raw scarlet outlining their eyes was proof of _joy_?

The lucky ones would be at an arm's reach from their loved ones. They'd catch their gazes, they'd speak through the tear-slick language of the eyes. And down here, the unlucky ones would stare at a screen; pixels and glass walling up the reality, and all the love that they'd send or yearn for would get lost in the endless wires, the endless currents- but it would still spark and explode and _exist_, somewhere hidden from all – the tears would be square and flickering, the eyes would be lost in a electrical blur of red, green and blue.

•

Shaken awake by a robotic female voice alerting the passengers that they'd arrived at Midgar's topmost level, Sephiroth gathered his wits as easily as ever and strode out, taking off his glasses and hat. The people could stare all they wanted, now- all he wanted was them to get the hell out of his way. He was hungry.

A phone call distracted him from his breakfast as he sat at a café close to where the ceremony would take place, hoping to spend a bit of time to think about what was about to take place, and while he was at it, to spare a thought for the bizarre night he'd just spent. Sighing, he took a huge bite in his bun before barking a muffled answer into the phone, clearly showing his interlocutor that they were disturbing one of his rare moments of peace.

"Hey, man. What the hell are you up to? I would've thought I'd see you as soon as I get in the building, pacing around the office and muttering your speech as you usually do. What are you doing? _Eating,_ still?"

Sephiroth sighed again, trying to bottle his irritation. "These are the best fucking bagels in all of Midgar, so you'd better have a reason for calling. I have _everything_ under control, so if you're still intent on nagging me about something, out with it."

"Is your speech any good?"

"My speech is _always_ good."

"Good enough to fool anyone?"

The General smirked. "Of course not."

"Directly afterwards I'm summoning you to the briefing room."

"I hope the coffee machine isn't still broken in there."

"I don't know about that. But don't forget."

"You know me."

"I suppose so. And what about the press?"

"That's supposed to be your job."

"Don't you start whining, General. I'm giving you a direct _order _to get your ass up here and take care of the flock I can see pressing their faces up against the windows." There was a sadistic chuckle. "Come up and be amused, sir."

Staring down longingly at his half-eaten, raisin-studded, sugar-coated bun, Sephiroth heaved another sigh, damning his superior for having the right to control even his mornings.

"I suppose I must. See you there."

Lazard Deusericus hadn't been lying when he'd mentioned a flock. It was practically a menagerie of journalists running around trying to get their microphones into cracks in the walls, pouncing on any official who appeared- the SOLDIERs who were lining up in the huge empty parking lot before the ShinRa headquarters and the streets beyond were being assaulted by cameras, too. A lot of the blue-clad warriors held dainty women by the hand, their heavy gear clashing with the light, wind-swept skirts of their companions. Trying to savour their last couple of minutes, Sephiroth mused, affording the SOLDIERs and their families an indifferent glance as he boldly headed towards the main entrance.

The journalists became completely frenzied as they saw him plunging into their curious, wide-eyed crowd. Immediately they were all simultaneously screeching rhetorical questions into his extra-sensitive ears, microphones pressing up against his chest and armpits and throat and practically everywhere else – after a few minutes of this blind debauchery the General turned around and threw his arms up, sending one or two cameras flying. Their attention caught, the journalists stared up at him.

"I'm almost late, ladies and gentlemen, so would you please refrain from touching me."

"The general's late? What were you doing last night, sir?" The stupid questions fired up again. "Enjoying your last moments with your troops? Girlfriend?"

Sighing irritably, the General practically nose-dived into the ShinRa headquarters, forcing the automatic glass doors shut so that their systems fizzled out and sparked angrily at him. Then he turned around and met the next crowd- the one that would supposedly assist him.

As he strode towards the elevators, he listened and nodded to the technicians who spoke to him about the audio and lighting configuration that they'd chosen; to the professional ShinRa journalists who informed him of the situation they were in, the SOLDIERs conditions, the number that was out there and those that were yet to arrive; to the ShinRa captains and overseers who would flank him on the high balcony, telling him of how things would go about when the speech was over, how they would organize the troops and get them to the tanks and ships… a few followed him up a few levels, but once he'd reached the required floor, there were only the captains and one journalist left.

The doors slid open to reveal Lazard, the blond SOLDIER executive who looked at him slightly teasingly through his glasses.

"Had a nice morning?"

Sephiroth scowled at him.

"Actually it looked good at first- five minutes ago I was still at the Condor, enjoying a coffee and thinking things would go slow as they usually do."

"Well, my friend, it's a bit understandable that ShinRa didn't choose to slow down when they're about to send their entire force halfway across the Planet," Lazard grinned at the General, putting out an arm and leading the silver-haired legend out of the cramped elevator. The procession strode towards the double-doors that lead to the wide balcony where the speech would take place. The entire room was filled with desks and people slaving away at complicated programs on even more complicated computers.  
President ShinRa and son were waiting with Heidegger and Scarlet. The president would start with a few clichés and fake encouragements, and then leave Sephiroth to handle his troops.

"Ah, he finally arrives," Scarlet purred, a slender nylon-clad leg very conspicuous through the slit in her trademark red dress. It wasn't difficult to imagine such a woman with a sadistic weapon fetish- which was probably why being head of the weapons department suited her so well. "We've been discussing the situation, General; everything is perfectly well organized and ready. All that's left is to give the soldiers and journalists a few words to chew on, and then you're out of here."

"If that's alright with everyone… starting now!" the President called to the technicians, holding up a hand, before heading toward the balcony with his son tagging along behind him, eager to lap up his father's politics.

There was a roar of applause that the double doors muted as they slid shut, and Sephiroth was free to mull over what he'd say. His captains had already given him ample information to work with- he bowed his head, beginning to pace as was his habit.

"So I was right," Lazard laughed as he watched his friend, "You're not prepared at all."

"That _can_ be an advantage," Sephiroth countered. Then all of a sudden he noticed the journalist's existence- he stopped in his tracks, giving her a quizzical look. "Why are you still here?"  
She was tall and slim, sharp red strands of hair hanging stylishly around her face- there was some kind of endless energy floating around her, as though she never slept and infused her veins with caffeine. She was looking at him with an eager spark in her eye, a notepad wedged between her arm and chest.

"I'm Ren, one of the top ShinRa journalists, having covered more missions than even the elder jou- "

"Yes, yes, maybe, but what are you doing up here with us? This area is restricted to people of importance."

Ren didn't even lose her bold countenance. "I know. I just have a few things to go over with you once you're done so I decided to wait up here."

"That's impossible," Sephiroth said, growing impatient, "Tell the captains what you know and they'll go over it with me."

"Begging your pardon but what I have to say is confidential, sir. My department won't let me spread the news without verification of what I've witnessed."

She stared at him straight in the eye with those pale blue eyes, irises encircled by dark rings as if to stop the ghastly blue colour from spilling out.

"Get out of here," Sephiroth snapped at her, not fazed in the slightest as he returned to his pacing. He had to think. He had to think… _mother_, the entire corporation seemed to be set on aggravating him this morning.

•

The screen was blurred and multi-coloured as the transmission struggled to seep down to the slums. The man known as Joey kept knocking the side of the poor old machine to try and get a better signal – the image kept haring off to the side and then sliding back into view.

"Is the President really _green_?" some kid piped up, and his parents cooed fondly at him- the rest of the people who had sat down on the carpet and furniture were talking between themselves, staring up at the screen every now and again and exchanging thoughts on what the president was babbling about.

"He's not even worth listening to," Elmyra said angrily, fingers tapping her crossed arms. "There he is, talking about the brilliant future and the money and all that- what does that mean to us? He's speaking to a fifth of Midgar's entire population, and he still thinks he knows how to control crowds."

"He certainly doesn't control us," a scruffy-looking man spoke, sitting close to Aeris, who was on the buffet swinging her legs to and fro. "If we surged up against him he'd be completely drowned."

"I don't know about that," another man spoke up, "We may have the numbers, but he's still got some pretty heavy security surrounding him, even with his major forces gone."

"What are you talking about? _Rebellion?_" Aeris caught herself answering them with a huff. "We'd be splattered. We're not healthy, or well-armed, or anything."

The first man glanced over at her. "We have stealth. We have all the knowledge of Midgar's darkest, dirtiest places that they'll never have."

"Looks like you've been giving this some thought," Aeris said off-handedly, eyebrows raising- then she gave the man a mischievous grin. "So we'll gather our homemade junk, hide under their beds and throw Molotov cocktails around to distract them while another stealth unit wires something deadly into Mr President's pyjamas. Sounds good to me."

"Damn. There's an idea," the first man approved with a dead serious expression, which made her laugh – Elmyra looked over at her daughter and touched her shoulder.

"Aeris." She knew slum dwellers were supposed to stick together, but this kind of talk was wholly inappropriate.

"Look! It's the General!" the little boy piped up again. Most of the people stopped talking in order to listen to what he had to say. The faulty screen was tainting him in all sorts of interesting colours- his face went from violet to yellow to bright white. Then Joey slapped the TV, and the colours stayed that way- ridiculously white, so that it looked like some congress in Heaven.

Aeris stared as the cameras zoomed in on the General's face. She hadn't had the chance to really look at him; he'd been too close to her, too enigmatic and lingering out of her reach for her to have a proper look at him – but now his status was quite clear as he stood before thousands of men, flanked by ShinRa executives and captains.

"Pretty impressive flock, aren't they, the ShinRa heads?" someone ventured.

"Bah! All they do is piss where the president tells 'em to piss," barked a man, waving an angry arm at the screen. "They only act to pile up their own wealth, sitting in their corners and doing as they're told."

"The general ain't like that," a brave guy just out of his teens spoke up. "I've heard about him. He's pretty good."

"He's got superiors just like the others have, lad. One toe out of line and out you go."

"ShinRa would be nothing without people obeying their orders," Aeris said before she could stop herself, "In a way the superiors need their workers just as much. I don't think ShinRa could afford to fire most of the people who work under him- and if the ShinRa heads are clever enough to use that to their advantage, they'll know how to impose their own conditions."

"We've got a perfect little politician down here, it looks like," a man laughed as several heads turned to the Cetra.

"Quieten down, folks, hear what this one has to say if he's as brilliant as you make him."

•

His eyes traveled over the sea of soldiers, sunlight catching off countless shoulder-pads and helmets, heads upturned. The cameras swayed around on their long electric arms, the wind disturbing their precise recording – he could smell the soldiers' cold sweat as the breeze lifted up to brush against him, throwing his trenchcoat into leathery waves, silver strands dancing across his face, catching on his lips.

"What do you think you're throwing yourselves into, soldiers?" he yelled, hearing the frightful echo rebounding across the streets, curling around the buildings, offending the sky. "The smell of ash, of burning, the lives you hold at gunpoint. You are all used to this. You have been trained. Trained to become hounds of war. But even though Bloodlust has seduced you, even though you have taken her as your mistress, you must learn to treat her with proper manners, gents. Else how will you know when to stop? How will you know when to have mercy?" He stopped. "_Will_ you have mercy?"

The soldiers threw up their arms, yelling a bestial cry of a million voices that chilled the captains at Sephiroth's sides.

"You'd better," the General shouted, his throat raw, "else you will leave behind you the ounce of humanity that you still have."

The army jested. "Brothers! You will savour the flesh of that beautiful country before tactfully bending it to your will, just as respectfully as with any woman. This I ask of you, and I must beg you to safeguard your minds, for I will need them. I cannot possibly lead a pack of raging berserkers."

The soldiers yelled joyously again. The captains eyed the General, intrigued; this certainly sounded like an improvisation. One or two of them were grinning; others, shaking their heads.  
"There will be fear. There will be pain. There will be darkness and blood, and earth, and panic. You will doubt mercy; you will doubt your self-control. But I trust you. I have trusted you all during the years that I have spent with you, be it in failure or success, and I trust you now. I just hope you trust in the sincerity of my words as much as in the sincerity of your revenues." At this the soldiers jeered again. "My friends, I wish you all the best of luck."

It was the best he could do after a night of confusion and insomnia. Sephiroth abandoned the balcony to worthier men, retiring to the long corridors of the ShinRa building, heading toward the briefing room. He rubbed at his temples as he walked, chasing away the thumping headache that had somehow pounced on him during the speech. He barely even acknowledged those who nodded their heads at him as he passed.

The soldiers really had no idea what they were up against. They would be battling with themselves, crushing an enemy so much weaker than them that their own sense of morality would plunge into a whirling darkness. What to do when you engage into such vehemence against a population that doesn't rightly deserve what is about to be dealt against them? What do you do with yourself, when you are told to hate without reason; what does killing really require, after all? Sanity? Hate? What if the soldiers had none to spare? Money, then. Money for a thousand lives.

Sephiroth heard footsteps behind him as he hurried up the stairs, wanting to stretch his tireless legs a little. He slowed, hearing the false echoes of his own steps slowing to match him. Smirking, he continued up the stairs at a pace that would surely render any normal person breathless. As he reached the desired the level, he slowed, hearing spastic lungs trying to control their outbursts as the spy tried to move soundlessly up the stairs.

Slipping through the door, the General wondered what on the Planet this little redhead creature had to tell him that was so important; or perhaps she was simply stalking him for the fun of it. It would certainly not be the first time someone had decided to be a smartass and try to trick him.

The lights in this corridor were faulty – as the aseptic tiles sank into darkness the General pressed his back against the wall, drawing on his inborn capacities (or rather, intrauterine modifications) to let him blend into the darkness; it had served him well for situations far more dire than this one. Though, there was no knowing just how dire this little redhead would turn out to be, he thought, half-smirking to himself though the irritation was starting to dangerously inflate as he watched her shadow flit past the door, almost melting into the tiles as her slim body ran across the wall as smoothly as water. If he'd been normal, he wouldn't have heard those slightly trembling footfalls- he wouldn't have been able to distinguish the detail of her parted lips and the tiny curve of her lashes in the shadows.

_What are you up to, little fox?_ He watched with only mild amusement as she leaned her head forward a little, risking a glance at the corridor- she could no longer see him. Hm. Poor thing. She probably realized what an abysmal spy she'd make.

In half a second, before she could even realize what was happening, the air stirred violently as a heavy torso imprinted itself over her own – he'd spun around and taken up her wrists as efficiently as though he were the solid steel trap and she the mouse.

Hands pinned above her head and a masterpiece of musculature compressing her lungs till she could hardly breathe, the journalist-spy gave a strangled yelp of utter surprise ; she hadn't even known he'd been there.

"Lab rat from age 0 to age 27," Sephiroth hissed at her, "You'd think it would know its way around the maze by now."

She was too dazed to understand what he was on about; she was looking down at the floor, her head bowed to avoid his face, even though she couldn't see it. She could hear his breaths, which was enough to terrify her at such proximity.

"If you think you're good at this, if you think you can get away with anything, especially when your pathetic little missions concern me, then you might just want to think twice, _darling_."

"I- I- "

"Now then," Sephiroth interrupted with a mock-seductive, breathy tone of voice, "Why is a pretty young woman like yourself insisting on following people of exceedingly high rank, exceedingly important business, and exceedingly little patience, like _myself_, around?"

His voice was deliciously vengeful, though he kept it low and intimate.

"I wanted… to tell you… what I said I'd tell you," she said between gasps.

"Of course you did," Sephiroth smirked, toying with her for the fun of it; "It wouldn't do to just call my secretary, or shout out to get my attention. You had to slink along behind me and hope that the whole theory about legends still being men underneath is true."

"You would never give me your attention if I asked for it," she managed to say.

"Stop stating the obvious," Sephiroth scowled, "You have nothing to tell me. That's just your cover-up. You were following me to the briefing to gather a little _intel-_" She yelped as he tightened his grip on her wrists. "- weren't you?"

"There's a price if one wants to climb in the ranks as a journalist," Ren admitted in a growl, knowing she was caught. "And the so-called 'cover-up' is real information. If you let go of me I might just tell you."

Sephiroth let out an unpleasant bark of laughter. This cocky little thief certainly had all the wrong qualities when it came to his type of likeable colleagues.

"Sure thing," he sneered at her, before letting go of her. "I'd better not catch you again, or I can promise you it'll get nasty."

"Let me at least tell y-" she started eagerly, but his sharp intake of breath dissuaded her.

"One more word – one more _move_ – and I swear you'll be jobless and hitting Midgar's slimy pit."

He moved away swiftly, hoping against hope that she'd finally gotten the damn message; he could've sworn that journalists have to first pass boot camp before getting a job just to see if their level of obstinacy was high enough to get them through. But it didn't really surprise him when he heard a movement behind him – what caught him off-guard was the blinding flash that illuminated the entire corridor for half a second.

He whirled around, an animalistic expression on his face. He was going to _kill_ her.

"You-" He couldn't even squeeze out anything else- like a hunger-crazed wolf he leapt at her, knocking her flat on the floor and wrapping his hands around her throat, her camera flying.

"You've just earned yourself misery, my dear," he growled at her as she struggled- he was straddling her, and she was completely at his mercy – fire ran through his veins as he lifted a fist, previsualising how those peachy cheeks would turn an elegant shade of blue -

"REBELS," she gasped out frantically, nails scraping at his knuckles, "Rebels under the plate! Secret meetings and illogically abundant war intelligence."

"There have always been rebels under the plate," Sephiroth snapped before thinking, but just as he allowed his mind to start functioning normally again, he found that his fist stayed suspended as he calculated the meaning of what she'd just said. She had her wide eyes on his fist.

He reconsidered her, regaining a coolly professional expression. "What do you mean."

She coughed as she regained the use of her crushed larynx, glaring up at him. "I thought a man of your intelligence would take the opportunity to grasp this untouched information and do with it what he saw fit. I've noticed unusual activity in the slums lately; it's too quiet, and people have a more solemn and witty look about them. It's like something's being planned. I'm sure someone is using their numbers and their poor conditions to lure them into some strategic trap."

Sephiroth considered her, an eyebrow raised. "You _think_. You've _noticed_. Do you have any real proof to back your words?"

"_No_, sir, which is why I'd like someone to take my warning into consideration. Some spy or other is polluting the minds of the most gullible forces in the slums, and it could quite possibly affect the war."

"Do you know what you're implying, Ren? Do you know how important you're making this?" Sephiroth was looking very serious now. "If you're wrong, you will have had created a commotion for nothing."  
"I haven't. You're the only one who knows."

He watched her, eyes intense as he considered what she'd told him.

"Ah, so this is why you're late."

Lazard stood in the corridor, eyeing this strange couple with a very amused glint in his eye. Sephiroth looked up at him, practically sitting up on a very embarrassed journalist.

"Excuse me," he said with a careless look about him, the ghost of a grin tugging at his mouth. Getting up, he took Ren by the forearm to help her up just like he'd help up any SOLDIER. "It's honestly _not_ what it looked like," he added to Lazard before looking down at the redhead with more authority than mocking condescendence in his gaze. He lowered his voice. "Meet me in the lobby after the briefing."

•

The man shivered, drawing his filthy trench coat tighter over his chest, his breaths seeping out in white coils, disturbing in the cold, still air. There was no wind down here; neither sun nor moon, and sounds seemed to echo in the cubic alleyways like trapped fiends, hitting barriers wherever they tried to escape.

Exhaling sharply to get the dark strands out of his face, the man let his eyes trail along the dirt road he was taking. Everyone was still by their radios and rare televisions, discussing what they'd just witnessed- the war, the speeches, the big shiny upper world crammed in a 30x30 square, or slithering through the grate of old-fashioned radios.

He smirked to himself behind his long, disheveled hair. How attached they were to their heroes, the slum dwellers- how very touching it was to see them flocking around any scrap that the otherworldly would chuck down the drains. It was scandalous to see such human forces put to waste down here, unused and too miserable to band together- the streets, the _landscape_, if he could permit himself such an elegy, were so wretched that the misery of the stacked metal scraps, the overhanging wires, the bleak concrete walls seemed to infuse its inhabitants with the same precarious stability, the same raw quality and sharp edges.

It was a good thing he'd be taking these unfortunates out of their blind submission; the thought of these thickset, grim-faced slum dwellers marching across the upper world bourgeoisie while their precious SOLDIERs were occupied elsewhere made his lungs expand with some kind of awe-filled anticipation. But this wasn't some mission that had been given to him out of compassion for the Midgarian injustices. He scoffed as he thought of himself as some kind of good Samaritan; of course, he wouldn't be around when the lower world assaulted the ones living above. And he knew very well that the pure rage of these bulky unfortunates didn't stand a chance against the men with the glowing eyes.

His head was filled with these dark thoughts as he strode on, his overly ripped trousers hanging from his legs as he quickened his pace. He'd told himself he wouldn't lift his eyes again if it was to take in such a saddening spectacle of broken pavements and smashed windows and lurching, unhinged things swaying in the windless alleys- but a sudden smell seemed to rip apart the slum stench and seep up into his nostrils, almost making him cough. The sweetness burned him, now that he'd grown accustomed to this atmosphere of oil, sweat, metal, and the heady perfume that the girls wore to supposedly dissipate the stench.

This was completely new. For a moment he thought that somehow there had been a glitch in Time, and he was back in the rolling hills of Wutai, the long grass swaying in the wind, rippling as though the wind was combing through the fur of a gigantic feline, curled up in the midst of an endless blue realm.

He lifted his eyes, only half-expecting to see something other than some sort of hallucination. And then he actually saw it; the church spire pointing upward to the gash in the upper plate, wide and gaping and leaking rainwater- hanging wires were draped around the actual spire, giving it some kind of rigid black mane. And the sunlight- it poured down, tainting the roof tiles a magnificent white colour that blinded the eyes; it shone through the stained glass windows, offered reds and blues resulting from the marriage of sun and glass, instead of it being the usual neons and artifice.

The man allowed his chin to rise, allowed the light to warm his eyelids, to make his cheeks and neck glow- it had been weeks (or months? He'd lost track) since he'd tasted the sun, since he'd marveled at a little piece of sky. And now he stepped forward as though hypnotized, forgetting what had been so important just seconds before – his eyes on the stones of the church that seemed to bear the streaks of celestial tears on their gritty flanks, he advanced till he came to the front of the church.

The double-doors were open.

He allowed himself the liberty of walking right in, thick soles making the worn floorboards creak. He didn't even have to ask himself just what this church had been built to honour; the divinity in question was sweetening the air, brightening the obscurity, and, astonishingly… allowing _life_ to flourish. His eyes were on the illuminated patch of ground beyond the church pews – there was a straggle of plants dragging themselves out of the soil, straining up for the sunlight like hands of many colours – some of them were brown with age, others pale and glowing softly atop their lank stems.

It was far from the wild, vibrant beauties of Wutai; to each territory its flowers, was his guess. The sprawling splashes of colour from his country illustrated the magnificent ferocity of life that eased up from the fertile Wutain soil. But here, the flowers were so fragile; they were in a mess, each smothering the other to reach the light, holding their rivals down by the roots, it seemed, and coiling around their neighbours in an attempt to be carried up into the sun…

He crouched down and touched the withered specks that littered the ground, hidden under the leaves of the others. An indefinable smile touched his lips, and then he brought his face upward into the light again, his throat extended, eyes closed, reveling in the peaceful illusion.

And there he remained, a hunched black figure sitting in the forbidden light.

•

The woman in the black suit remained hidden in a crevice inside a jungle of twisted steel pillars, closely observing the dark haired stranger as he entered the church.

"The target just entered the church near the sector six gate," she spoke into the small receiver pinned to her collar. "Requesting for orders."

"Continue with covert surveillance," was the static-crackled reply. She looked around the building, searching for an alternate entrance into the church.

She crawled up the rubble toward the ceiling of the church and found a small opening in the back, and with cat-like grace she jumped down silently onto a wooden beam at the back of the church. She tiptoed her way toward the wall separating the cathedral and the back room, and peered through a small crack.

"Target is stationary," she whispered.

The black-clad woman remained there, watching as the man, oblivious to her presence, admired the interior of the church.

After a long moment, the front door opened and a girl in a white dress appeared.

"Subject Aeris Gainsborough has now entered the building," she reported. She pulled out a microphone from her pocket and slid it through the crack in the wall, holding the wire in her hand to keep the mic from falling.

The man spun around in surprise, staring straight at Aeris.

"Hello," Aeris said hesitantly, "can I help you?"

• •


	6. Chapter 6

**a&n**  
Dedicated to wanderingmusician for giving me some of the long-lost inspiration that I needed to continue this story. Christ, I hadn't even thought a continuation was possible. Thanks, mate!  
Also, this is **no longer a collaboration**... it's just me. We had a very big plot, but then we decided to break off the collaboration... and now that I look at our old plot I know I won't have the patience to develop so many secondary characters. I'm simplifying things, making it shorter and focusing more on the original Sephiroth/Aeris/Zack triangle.  
This chapter was already half-written so I was a little reluctant to change things... let me know if there are any unnecessary chunks that I might lop off to give you readers some more breathing space. For now I'm just chucking this out to see if anyone's still biting - there'll probably be some modifications later on. :)

* * *

• **6 **•

"And afterwards?"

"They didn't talk much, sir. I could hardly pick up what they were saying."

Tseng sighed, knocking the butt of his pen against the file. "Are you still monitoring the Wutain's movements?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he now?"

"I've got my eye on him, sir. I'll notify you when he takes part in any particular event or interaction. For now he's in a Sector 6 hotel."

"Good. And the girl?" An intake of breath, as if he hadn't meant to let that slip out.

"Sir?"

"No, forget that."

"If you'd like to change your mind about tracking her- "

"I said, forget it. Dismiss for now."

"Thank you, sir. Have a good night."

• •

The red fur drew a jagged line along her powdered cheekbone, and she threw a glance over her shoulder as her slender white fingers slid over the rough wood of the double-doors, preparing to close the church for the night. Heels snapping over the floorboards, she pulled the doors closed and turned the key in the lock with a rusty cough.

Pocketing the key, she turned to the dreary custard-coloured hue of the evening air. The lamps in this area always had a feeble, flickering moment before they fizzed out of the life for the night, and there was an electric buzz in the air as they emitted their dirty light, refusing to give their territory up to the nocturnal darkness.

There was a figure in the shadows.

She knew those square shoulders; knew that slick outline of long black hair. Sighing, she wondered abstractedly if this time he would have made up his mind- it almost frightened her to realize how indifferent she'd become to his visits, but, they were so frequent, and he always seemed to be stuck in a whorl of indecision, so that there was never really a reason to be afraid. He'd never given her away. She knew him; he didn't really need to give her reasons, after all this time. But he was faithful to his indecision; and so she was faithful to her trusting indifference.

"Here again?"

She tucked her chestnut curls into the ostentatious crimson that hugged her shoulders before walking straight up to him. Not that she was intent on greeting him up close; he was in the middle of the road.

"You should be more careful, Aeris."

"And you should be less patronizing," she huffed in response.

Silently, he let himself slip into step beside her, lacquered shoes misted over by the dust that he stirred with every footfall. He risked a sidelong glance at her pale profile, the discreet dip of her brow, the long inky lashes lowered over the darkened green. Her lips had disappeared behind the red fur, though with every step her shoulder would drop a little and he'd catch a glimmer of humidity, a sensual curve of dark pink.

He sighed. "Are you ever going to take my advice into consideration?"

Lashes lifted; dilated pupils met his own as her cheek plumped in a cheeky smile.

"Not until you tell me whose side you're really on."

"You say that like it's a game, Aeris. I'm only being charitable, and you know it."

She smiled again, though her eyes were hard as they turned back to the road ahead. "If you're trying to threaten me, please don't waste your breath. You know just as well as I do that your own curiosity won't allow you to hurt me."

Tseng let her walk ahead a little, observing how the dress clung to her slim waist as her leg came forwards, tugging the material over her thigh, hem coiling around the top of her calves as supply as water; she always chose jackets cut just above the waist, the precise place that mesmerized him in women. Especially when they walked like _that_. "Sometimes I forget just how…" _Womanly?_ "… toughened you've become."

"You forget a lot of things, Tseng," Aeris said in the same blunt tone, "Things like, the actual point in coming to see me. Or the point in talking to me. Or, why you're involved in my case in the first place; something about catching the last Ancient, wasn't it? Tch." She gave a little wave of the head. "I can't seem to recall what that was about. Can you?"

"Stop playing with me," Tseng said, hands in his pockets as he forced himself to maintain the slight distance between them. "I'm here to ask you something."

"Ask away," she said almost exasperatedly, "before you decide to finally pull your Turks out of your pocket."

"I know you've been approached by a very important man."

She actually stopped in her tracks, looking up at him with confused eyes; she almost looked hurt to know that he'd glimpsed into her privacy after he'd told her that he would do no such thing. Of course, he couldn't know what she thought he'd meant; she thought he'd meant her meeting with the General, though she wasn't entirely sure _how_ anyone could've found that out. Anyway, she'd covered up her expression with haughty disdain in the millisecond that followed, throwing her nylon-clad legs back into their usual brisk march.

"Nice to see you're finally taking initiatives. I knew you'd come to intrude on my privacy sometime."

"Well you weren't exactly hiding away in a cabinet," Tseng smirked, "Your church is supposed to be a public place; observing you there doesn't even require any particular skill, so don't start jumping down my throat."

She swallowed imperceptibly, relief washing over her – he'd meant _that _man. Right.

"So? What's all the fuss about?"

"We believe he's a Wutain spy. He's been stirring unrest into the minds of the slum-dwellers and we believe a revolution is at hand."

She'd guessed as much, from the look of him. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"We think he's got his hands on too much confidential ShinRa information. We're very concerned for your safety, as it's pretty widely known that you're a wanted woman. ShinRa's weakness."

"_We_ are very concerned?" Aeris slowed down, allowing them to be shoulder-to-shoulder as she threw him a dangerous glance. "Whose weakness am I, really?"

He grabbed her wrist and wrenched it up against her back- she yelped in surprise, flinching away from the pain and stumbling against his chest.

"How many times must I remind you," he growled into the glistening chestnut crown of her head, her short outbursts of breath tickling his throat. "Don't play games with me."

"Or what?" she gasped out, trying to sound threatening though the pain was distorting her voice slightly. "You'll finally make up your mind? Believe me, if playing games with you is all it takes to make you decide what to do with me, I'll play till you decide. What will it be? Will you rip up my cards, or play along?"

"Define the rules. Then we'll see."

"_We'll see, we'll see,_" she parroted him as he loosened his grip on her wrist. "Undecided little man. You're not the only one with an ace up his sleeve, you know. I could betray you to ShinRa just as readily as you could betray me."

"We've been over this so many times, Aeris."

"Yes. And let me just add, for the hundredth time – _let go of me_."

"That's my cue – _as long as you don't run_."

"Hmph."

He let her go, and she rubbed her wrists, painted nails glinting in the dim light. "So what were we talking about?"

"We want you to get close to the Wutain spy for us. We'll have you covered if he tries anything."

She looked at him, brow creasing in doubt. "What do you mean… _tries anything? _That sounds like the sort of thing I don't want to be involved in."

"I don't think you're going to have a choice. He's gaining popularity in the slums and we want you to tell us what he's planning. Rebellion is in the air and this is _not _the right time."

She fidgeted, still holding her wrist as she stood before him, slim little fur-clad figure shifting from foot to foot. "Why me?"

"We want to protect you from him anyway, so it would be killing two birds with one stone."

He beheld her, heart pounding as frustration gnawed at the borders of the tangled emotion that he was submitted to whenever he set eyes on her – the girl he'd been observing since forever, selfishly keeping the glory of such an acquaintance to himself. It had been awe, before. Now… it was very different, _she _was very different; much more aware of their strange situation. And he couldn't keep avoiding the ultimatum that loomed ahead of their precarious relationship.

"So in exchange for your protection," she summarized slowly, "I play the double-agent in order to help you put a stop to the slum rebellion. Right. So… you _really _think I'm on your side? That I can't_ possibly_ agree with the idea of the slum-dwellers rising up against you Midgarian tyrants?"

"It depends what you mean by 'my side'."

She sighed. "Tseng, I'm talking about ShinRa's side, not your _personal_ side."

"I know. But you know very well it's an offer you can't refuse."

"I can take care of myself if they take me hostage or whatever it is you're afraid of. I'm not _that_ helpless."

"I know you aren't."

"Unless…" She gave him a queer look. "Unless what you're really afraid of is the fact that I'm free to choose which cause I want to fight for."

"I'm not afraid of that particular freedom. You can choose to fight for whomever you like. You can side with the Wutain spy and work against me. You can do anything you want."

"But, if I _do_ choose to do what I want…" Aeris gave a black-humoured smile.

"Come on," Tseng returned the smile, "You don't _really_ want me to openly threaten you, do you? I'd really rather not."

"Well I _could _do with a little frightening."

He almost laughed aloud at that. "I definitely agree. Ok, if you help with the rebellion…" He was trying to summon his imagination, but he just could not get that face out of his mind for a long enough time-span to focus on anything else. He could look away, it would make no difference; those wide green eyes seemed to be etched in the darkness around them, materializing everywhere he looked. He was so tired of the frustration, the indecision, all those insolent little sparks of his personality that surfaced whenever they met… He looked down at her again, took in that heart-shaped face, those sceptical eyes, those slender arms hugging her chest as she awaited the verdict. "If you refuse to cooperate, I will arrange a diner at the topmost floor of the ShinRa Headquarters where roasted specimens will be served to you and your host, Doctor Hojo." She burst out laughing at the utter ridicule of such a situation – it seemed so horrendous that it couldn't be possible. Tseng, on the other hand, looked deadly serious. "Threatening enough?"

"Threatening… hm… it's kind of impossible though, isn't it? Hojo wouldn't waste his time _dining_ with me."

"Pick another pleasant ShinRa head then."

"No – I'm the freak, I'm telling you. No one would bother interacting with me as a human."

He considered her for a moment. "How about interacting with you as a woman?"

Her eyes seemed to stab into his when she next looked up at him; her hand flew to his cheek and he took the blow, a rare smile blooming on his otherwise smooth facial features. He knew he had crossed the line; normally he would never have spoken to her like that unless she'd expressly asked for it. He respected her, maybe too much for his own good. Right now though, he couldn't think of anything else that would sway her as effectively.

"That's _disgusting_."

"You asked for a proper, credible threat."

"And who would you have in mind?"

"I don't know. Who revolts you the most?"

"Right now, I'd say _you_."

His eyes sparked. "Then it's agreed." His smile widened as he watched her confusion settle gradually on her face – her lips tightened as she realized what she'd just implied.

"No, hang on, wait a minute - "

"I do hope the Wutain spy will have grown very fond of you in the next few days, for your sake."

"That's unfair, Tseng! We were only _talking -_ "

"Oh? You thought you could have a say in the threat I choose to give you? That's not how black-mailing works, I'm afraid." He flicked a finger at her chin, amusedly observing how she was quaking with rage. "At least I've succeeded in frightening you into obeisance, for once."

"You're right," she hissed, "though in doing so you're not exactly flattering yourself."

"Oh, that's alright. As long as I'm assured you'll cooperate." They were standing in a fork in the road; he stepped away from her, bowing his head a little as a parting gesture. He knew he probably wouldn't live up to his end of the bargain if she actually decided not to cooperate, but she seemed to believe that he was capable of desecrating what he practically saw as the only woman worthy of respect in the whole of Midgar… so their deal seemed to be pretty solid.

"In three days, at this hour, you'll be waiting for us at the church, hopefully to enlighten us."

"Three days!"

"Goodnight, Aeris."

He turned on his heel and advanced down the path that probably led to where his vehicle was stationed; she stared after him, completely appalled at the unfairness of it all, and more than surprised at how abrupt he was. She had hardly even spoken to the Wutain man! How on the Planet was she going to manage to… _uuurgh!_

"Yeah, pleasure doing business with you," she shouted wildly after him before continuing down her own road, giving in to the pleasure of imagining just what his superiors would say if they found out how many years he'd been successfully hiding her from them. She hadn't thought the man capable of being so… so _direct_ all of a sudden. She pulled her artificial furs closer, shivering in the cold; she knew that his threat went much further than just a simple hour of punitive intimacy. He'd ultimately give her to ShinRa; they both knew that had been the unspoken part of the deal, the part that made it almost laughable to have to tack on other frightening things to make it seem more real. So much time had passed that it didn't seem possible for him to give her away… but it was. Still, there had to be _something _she could do to turn this to the slum-dwellers' advantage… She knew that the slum protestations always ended up being squished by ShinRa, be it through sneaky double-edged laws or actual armed forces, but still: if they were violent enough, maybe this time they'd succeed in getting the message through to the cold-hearted up above… _Mother_, what a mess! If only she could eventually manage to organize something with the Wutain; being a double-agent certainly wasn't a profession she knew very well, but maybe she could think up of a plan.

There was a little voice in her ear, soothing her, reminding her that she didn't have to get involved in all this… that she was a child of the Planet… but, she felt compelled to remind it- she also happened to be a child of the slums now.

Gods, did she hate partisanship sometimes.

• •

The force of the explosion knocked him clear off his boots – he felt himself hurtling backward, the back of his head touching the space between his shoulder-blades as he lost all notion of gravity and space – and in the millisecond that followed his flight he was crumpling in the snow, his hands thankfully still gripping onto his rifle out of some lasting survival instinct as the touchdown sent harsh ripples of pain up his limbs.

The soldiers from the city of steel, the ones with the inhuman speed, they were here; it had started, finally. He still couldn't get his head around what had happened between this morning and now. He'd stumbled out of his tent, barely in his military pants, still tugging the suspenders up over his shoulders, mouth full of cartridges and a gun in his free hand as a group of tents burst aflame- there were blood-curdling shrieks as the flame-clad Wutain escaped their tents only to be shot down by arches of bullets that seemed to come from nowhere – they were camped in a sort of alcove in the mountain, no forest nearby, only wretched snow-covered plains and jagged spurts of rock.

The night watchers had been slaughtered in silence, hence the surprise attack. Then the firing had stopped, and there had been a deathly silence, only filled by the crackling of flames and the crumbling of the tents, the other soldiers yelling as they came together, all half-dressed, all with at least one weapon in hand.

Dawn came late in the wretched plains of the Wutain mountains. It was as black as night- they had heard reports the evening before from their superiors back down in the city, that the ShinRa fleet had been sighted, and that the Wutain had at least a day to prepare themselves. But those demons must've known how to deform time, if they had managed to come halfway across the Planet in only a few hours – Leviathan knew that human minds work faster when war is at hand, but this had to be a technological miracle.

The wind seemed to rise. And then there was not only semblance but a cruel reality – it ripped the air from their lungs, filling them with freezing dread, pulling at their clothes and tugging back their hair. The captains had to yell themselves hoarse in order to be heard – but Saigo knew it would not stop there, that any just-hatched strategy stood no chance against these demons of magic and bloodlust.

Three Wutain soldiers strode with difficulty against the wind, holding out their hands, a sphere of preternatural blue light pulsating into existence before their outstretched palms – the materia that was wedged in their shurikens glowed fiercely as the attack grew into a sizzling orb of electricity. The wind tore shreds of white from the luminescent orb – it lit up the area before them, and the rocks loomed up in the artificial lights, the night impossibly dark behind them.

"Lines! Lines!" The captains shrieked, herding the soldiers into their positions around the natural posts of defense.

Shots were fired and immediately swallowed by great white arms of electricity that the three Wutains tore from their ever-growing orb. There were never any shouts or signs of human life from the unseen foe – the whole scene had only happened in a few seconds, and then before anyone could have the time to prepare themselves, the three Wutain soldiers ripped their hands from their electric monstrosity, and the explosion had been fantastic – the entire mountainside had been illuminated, the orb seemingly untangling itself into a thousand tiny, deadly spheres that shot out in all directions. Saigo and the rest of the soldiers found themselves hurtling backward without even understanding what was happening – there had been shouts from the enemy, and then after a heartbeat of silence and obscurity, there had been the answer to the electric storm.

_Fire_. A rain of flames, arching up into the sky before falling straight for the camp in a heart-stopping spectacle of mute violence, streaking across the darkness, beautiful while it was at a distance.

The captains wasted no time for sensitivity or panic. "SHIELDS!" they yelled, and immediately Saigo wrenched himself from the skybound scene and joined a dozen or so others, painting the air with the metaphysical shield that would protect them from the onslaught – his materia pulsated on his gauntlet, and he tried to think, tried to bring his mind around the situation, but he couldn't, could only think vague thoughts of utter unimportance – _she was probably still sleeping, a forearm tucked beneath her cheek, lips slightly parted, the covers creasing at her waist and outlining the perfect curve of her hip – _and then suddenly she was there, a face in the shapeless transparency of the shield, eyes agonizing and tears streaming down her cheeks – mouth dropping open, Saigo backed away from what he'd helped to construct, squinting as he thought he saw... was that really her, huddling in the snow, some way away in the darkness? Or was it just his sanity falling to pieces?

"Back to cover! _Cover!"_

It took all his careful training to be able to discard the illusion and follow his companions to the rocks. Just as another soldier yanked him by his suspenders behind a natural wall, they heard the impact of the beautiful rain of flames they'd stared at just seconds before – the shriek of flame just before it burst onto the tents, the mountainside, the rocks behind which they huddled, the angry hiss of fire consuming whatever it engulfed.

"Out right," came a whisper in Saigo's ear. Not even having the time to think about what he was doing, he followed the soldiers around the wall till they came to the other side, and all noise seemed to die down, their heartbeats filling their ears. Sorely regretting not having taken his shuriken, Saigo fingered the materia on his wrists, following the others out into complete obscurity.

They hadn't picked their position for nothing. There was only one way to access the gap where they had made their encampment, and the passages in the rocks gave the ones hiding under the mountain the chance of an inescapable ambush on the enemy.

If they were to stay hidden from the enemy, they had to stay hidden from each other, too. Saigo gripped his rifle, sending a prayer up to the mountain as he let the silent darkness swallow him.

• •

"_Sweetie...? What are you doing awake?"_

_She was sitting by the window, blue silk wrapped around her svelte physique, one bare leg hanging from the wide ledge she was perched on. Her hair was undone, black lengths pouring down and framing her anxious face. She glanced over at her mother, standing in the doorway in her day clothes – it was her habit to get up before the sun. But it was still far too close to midnight for her to have a reason, except insomnia, for being awake._

_What was she doing awake, her mother had asked? Was it reason enough that the mountains were too silent, too dark to be of any comfort to her – she had thought them to be full of majesty, but now they sat there smiling at her with infinite malice, so dark, so cold. Could she help the dread that was spreading in her like a plague; she had tried to diminish it, and like a panicked victim groping at the hands of the one who strangles her, she'd ripped apart his letters, watched the pieces blend with the snow as she let the wind have them... _

"_I don't know," she whispered. "I can't... I can't sleep."_

_She imagined the violet ink staining the snow as his words dissolved into winter's icy realm. And she hugged the blue silk to her, staring out the window, her pale profile outlined against the darkness outside._

• •

The mountain rock was gritty and sharp, loose shards dislodging from the cold structures and rolling into the holes in his gloves as he made his way through the pitch black. What kind of insane stratagem was this- they couldn't have shot a wild elk if it stood at bare centimetres from them in this darkness, let alone demons of modernity in camouflage. The absurdity of the situation would've made him laugh, and suddenly it bubbled up inside him, hilarity, delirium – he concentrated hard on the sound of his heart thumping against the freezing nocturnal air like a metronome, ticking the rhythm of his death. And what a glorious death it would be; a half-shaved, half-clothed animal with a gun in its hands, lungs so frozen that its breath didn't even come out as fog before its lips as it let the precious air escape.

What did they look like to the Gods, sitting up in their unreachable thrones in the mountain, scouring the expression of their divine imagination with cat eyes that pierced the darkness? Specks of humans, moving across the snowy plains, their shadows having abandoned them to join in dark feasts – a thundering chorus of fearful hearts, wildly trampling the lungs of their hosts in their struggle for escape – and then as his musing seemed to grow out of his mind and into the darkness around him, Saigo could suddenly hear the hearts all around him, pumping, throbbing in the still mountain air, and the noise was getting louder and louder until the blindness threatened to drive his sanity from him. Where were they? _Where were those fucking demons?_

Had it been seconds, or minutes, or a good portion of the night that had gone by, he couldn't tell, before a hand closed around his wrist, the soft insistence reassuring him that it was an ally- and then before he knew it there were hands dancing over his arms and back as his comrades grouped together, pulling each other to the ground. His breath suspended, Saigo let himself be filled by the awe of the moment, the haunting heartbeats vanishing as he sank down further into the silence with the others.

Someone put a hand beneath his chin and pulled his head to the left – there was movement, tiny but vital to their stratagem; silver reflections in the darkness. Soles rooted to the soil of their mountain, the Wutains felt their chests swell as the Gods once again gave them reason to trust in their heritage as men of the ancient mountain passes; there was a tap on every one of the soldiers' shoulders, and though there was no way of giving a signal to the soldiers on the other side of the ambush, they went ahead with their plan.

Saigo did not even hear the anticipated hiss of shuriken being thrown behind them in the corridor of rock – the weapons had been expertly crafted. It was only when the cry of pain of an eventual stalker would arise that they would have proof of their ancestral weapon's efficiency – but they did not wait for it as a signal to attack.  
It was like an incredible uprising, the feasting shadows leaping out of their treasured void and gaining substance, their bestial cries of battle suddenly audible, their limbs suddenly visible – the materia was aglow like multicoloured pulse points in the soldier's wrists as they leapt at the people from the glass city, casting electricity at the surprised SOLDIER's faces – in their fury they hadn't the time to notice that the look of surprise was fake, that their spells broke and shattered over the blue-clad men spectacularly but, after the last sparks had sizzled out, the men were still very well alive.

Saigo felt his heart clench so hard that the blood in veins seemed to drag across his webs of veins like drops of dew pulled by gravity. They had been expecting the ambush. Of course. They were demons whose luminescent eyes pierced the dark – and for some reason the speed with which the Wutain had played out the ambush that had allowed them to ward off enemies for centuries; the speed hadn't been enough.

_Bastard sons of metal and steam._ These men were industrialized, each carved out of the Mako block like dolls, each rising to meet the standard. Saigo hadn't had the time to get any other weapon, the rifle too slow to be effective – he stood at the back, casting, letting the flames pour from his palms, throwing crooked branches of electricity – it was chaos, there was red snow flying, fists and blades and boots sailing through the silence that rang with the bitter echo of the battle cry – and Saigo couldn't shake the thought that this enemy squad was far too small, that the others were out there in the dark taking care of a stratagem that was unknown to them for now.  
He could hear revolting shrieks and gurgles of pain from their camp, where several men had stayed to ensure the semblance of being trapped under the mountain – the violence, unbearable, it was filling his ears, it was filling his eyes and even his mouth as foul snow splattered across his face.

_"Sword! Sword!"_ he shouted himself hoarse as the melee warriors he was helping were mercilessly hacked down – the faces of the opponents, who wore dark bands over their eyes (surely to hide the luminescence) were painted with stark blue and red lights as spells blazed around them, balls of energy stolen from the Planet's womb dancing in the darkness as the spell-casters went wild. And then a blood soaked hilt was pressed into Saigo's palm, and he threw himself into the dance, slashing through the blue and red as though he was hacking his way through delicate curtains.  
It was like music – blades ringing in the bitter cold, eerie noises made by the spell-casters as though they were gracing their enemy's ears with the secret voice crystallized in orbs of the Planet's blood. Saigo could no longer feel the snow in his boots, the stinking humidity that had splattered his face and torso as others fell around him; he was mesmerized by the feel of his muscles stretching, his limbs unfurling with impossible precision, and pretty soon the bloodied snow on the side of the mountain was hosting a ballet honouring the timeless grace of Death.

• •

_She was running across the moonlit street, hair shimmering with reflections, blue silk folding inward at the waist as she ran, legs bare as they streaked in and out of the slits in her long robe. Her feet traced the familiar path that they'd trod so many times, her dear holding her to his side with one hand on her hip, him smiling, her watching his face – the pagoda rose up before her like it had done so many times before, cutting a sloping aberration in the night sky, shaped like an artificial pine tree reaching up to scrape the moon. Those times he had been there to help her; she had always been the fragile, clumsy one, like he'd said – 'one of the obliged downsides to any beautiful woman'.  
_

_But now she was alone, and the pagoda was slick with ice and so very, very high. Not that she'd let that bother her when she'd set out – and she was swimming in unreality, it seemed, the moon too big and luminous in the night sky, the buildings looming around her, paved roads glittering with cold humidity, slippery beneath her bare feet. It wasn't like anything else mattered, tonight – wasn't like she could choose to behave differently than how her instinct impelled her to.  
_

_She came to the red poles that were in a crisscrossed pattern on the outer wall – her fingers and toes seemed to remember the places to grip onto, so that when she lifted her hands and leapt upward she found her footing as easily as anything. And then like a blue-clad spider with ethereal white limbs she was climbing the side of the pagoda, her soft breaths and watery slithers of her palms and feet against wet wood disturbing the perfect silence.  
_

_"Little slug," Saigo would affectionately call her, standing on one of the roofs above her, "At this rate the moon will get tired of waiting for you."  
_

_She would've looked up, an angered smirk on her face, before getting muddled in her footing, giving an impulsive glance downwards and pressing herself to the carved wooden patterns she was climbing up.  
_

_"Lian?" Saigo would call softly, "Come on, don't tell me you're afraid."  
_

_"But it's high," she'd wail despite herself – she didn't know it, but Saigo loved to take her up there simply because all of her daily efforts to stay flawlessly feminine and elegant were useless when it__came to climbing the sacred pagoda. He had a preference for women pushed to the edge; forced to be absolutely natural._

_"What? It's not _high_," he'd laugh, "We're hardly half way up."  
_

_"Half the pagoda is still something like three times my own house, you demon," she'd say, "Come down and help me."  
_

_"Come up and make me."  
_

_"Saigo!" she'd groan, before glancing downward again and letting out a quiet gasp. "Saigo. Please."  
_

_She knew he melted when she took that tone with him. The silence rang with the absence of his response – and suddenly she was alone again, hanging off of a grid pattern of slippery red wood, the edge of the next roof just above her head, the wind snatching at the folds of her robe, blue silk rippling in the winter air. Dark strands webbed across her face as she paused, looking up to see the ghost of her fiancé's hand waiting to pull her up.  
_

_"Nearly there, my love," he'd smile, his face wearing a devilish expression as she hesitated. She'd take his hand grudgingly, letting him help her up – then as her feet found the secure tiles of the roof she'd plough into him with all her weight – which was nothing to him – and he'd flail his arms before catching her by the waist, pulling her against him and continuing to ascend with her stuck to his side.  
_

_"Do you realize you're giving me your life to toy with as I please?" she would whisper in the darkness as they ascended to the highest roof, "All I would have to do..." She would let her free hand come to touch his waist – he'd look at her with bewildered eyes, shaking her.  
_

_"You do that, and we both fall."  
_

_"Well it would be your fault."  
_

_"What?" he'd yelp, eyes widening even more.  
_

_"You're the one holding your enemy too close."  
_

_He'd smirk. "That's what they teach you to do though, isn't it?"  
_

_"Yes, but the enemy in their teachings isn't a half-naked woman."  
_

_"You're right. A subtitle in the enemy chapter should be dedicated to your bizarre, double-edged species."  
_

_"Keep your eyes on the tiles, Saigo."  
_

_He'd look at her deliberately intensely. "Who's toying with whose life now?"  
_

_"No. Stop it. We're almost there, be serious."  
_

_He'd start leaning towards her.  
_

_"What can you do, Lian? What can you do?"  
_

_"Stop it, come on. "  
_

_"What have you got yourself into, Lian? Naughty little girl. Trusting a man like him. Oh, you naughty thing."  
_

_"Stop it, Saigo! Please!" She'd turn her head away, heart pounding desperately as the wind whipped around her bare feet, making her shiver as the cold of her skin that was offered to the empty air __contrasted with the burning physical contact where Saigo pressed her against him._

_"What would you do if I kissed you, Lian?" he'd murmur, still smiling that treacherous smile.  
_

_"You're insane," she'd spit at him angrily, "Keep going."  
_

_"What would you do?" He was leaning towards her so much that their combined weight would soon unbalance them and pull them down.  
_

_"I'd peel you from the ground where you'd fall."  
_

_"Cruel woman," he'd laugh. And then he'd snatch a kiss from her, teeth nipping playfully at her lower lip, and she'd glare at him with half-panicked eyes, unable to move as he'd slide over her, pinning __her to the pagoda wall with his back to the cold air, feet firmly wedged in the crooks of the carved wood._

_"Let's undo gravity," he'd murmur, delirious with the adrenaline of their impossible height, "Let's unravel the threads of reality's laws."  
_

_"This is insane," she'd gasp, "You'd be kissing me in Death's face."  
_

_"Death is a black thread in the tapestry," he'd say, lips moving against hers, "All we have to do... is pull it out."_

_And he'd smudge her protest in a kiss, a moment free of gravity and true sense – she'd cling to the wood at her back with her nails, hips and thighs pressing against his for balance, feet between his own on the criss-crossed pillars. And he'd nuzzle her neck, hands busy holding on to the wall, or rather to life itself – and she'd sigh as he let his lips trail up her burning skin, letting herself pretend that no other law could bind her to life except that of his contact._

_She opened her eyes – she was at the top of the pagoda, finally. Her bare feet throbbed with cold in their sheaths of dew; she stood there in the bitter wind, a hand on the red central pillar from where the slanted roof fell. And she waited for the dawn to come, for the treacherous mountain to show its face, standing there like a rippling blue flame atop the sacred pagoda's highest roof._

• •

He lay there, wearing scarlet blossoms on his chest and limbs, staring up into the unfathomable darkness. His chest rose and fell unevenly as he tried to recall how he'd fallen; when had they started losing? … he could hear groans and whimpers around him, and then a light seemed to approach him – there was an enemy with a band over his eyes, most probably trying to regroup with his own kin. He had the perfect appearance of a reaper- his back bent over, black leather covering him from head to toe, long folds hanging from his hips. As he stepped nearer to Saigo, the long white strands that fell from his scalp became visible, most of them stuck together with blood and dirt. He began speaking to several other officers in a strange language- the language of the glass city, no doubt.

"The area's clear. We'll be able to get through the mountain pass tomorrow morning, hopefully unhindered."

"Good job. For now, regroup and set up camp here. We'll pile up the corpses and burn them when dawn arrives."

"Sending smoke signals to the Wutain city, sir?"

"Well if the fumes get over the mountain... I suppose so. Grim, but necessary: we can't exactly flag down our transports with our bare hands, can we? We don't really have many other options now that the Weapons department has yet again proved their inefficiency by selling us their faulty communication devices. They didn't even last two fucking days in the cold! I _knew_ this was going to happen..."

"Begging your pardon sir, but, isn't it a bit wrong to do that? I mean, in the morning the Wutains will wake up and see the ashes of their sons rising up from the mountains... "

"Wrong?" Harsh laughter. "Of course it's wrong. It's utterly despicable if you ask me, but, there we are."

"Good to see _someone_ around here still has their head on straight, though."

"Yeah, well, don't you all start sniveling now, because once we get to the city... things are going to get very, very ugly."

"Well if they decide not to dawdle and _sign_ the damn treaty after all this time... "

"I hope you give them _some_ time to think. I've always wanted to come here."

"Yeah, well, tourism isn't exactly the priority here. But you might get lucky. Come on, let's move."

The leather-clad reaper was sinking further into the darkness, taking with him his light, leaving Saigo to the night, the howling wind, and the tears it ripped from his eyes.

• •


	7. Chapter 7

**a&n  
**Don't worry, there IS some sex in these 9000 words to alleviate the droning narrative. :D Here's to those who've still got an eye on this story! I'm writing essentially because my mind is too full of crap these days so I have to splay it out _somewhere, _and somehow these lovely characters manage to develop and make sense of my own thoughts much better than I can_. _Ever wondered how weird that is? You're writing a dialog, and suddenly you realise it's become more like automatic writing than an actual fictional dialog between two well-defined characters. Anyway, all that to say I'm not really privileging speed when it comes to the narrative or the actual updates. Still, if you think it's dragging on too much, tell me - the next chapter is going to be a huge explosion of action anyway, but it won't really have much of an effect if everyone's gotten catatonic by then.

About the updates, I know I'm anything but consistant and I'd like to apologize for that, but, well you've gotten used to that haven't you, if you're still here? ;) Bless you if you are! Your words, attention, and simple presence here mean alot to me. :)

* * *

• **7 **•

Zack stared around himself at the heartwrenching spectacle of the city being torn apart. The wind combed through the flames that exploded through the roofs, pulled down the magnificent carved pillars, cracked through the cores of the great ageless trees. He was with the group of First Class who had been sent in to assess the state of the reputed city, and he'd sent some of his friends up to the Pagoda to see if any men of state had lingered- they had decimated the troops that had bravely stood against them and now the streets were full of a hollow despair. ShinRa had set loose their manufactured hounds of war and there was an absurd ringing of screams and crackling flames and artillery in the air… he stooped to scrape at the delicate lace that had been melted into the wooden debris that lay at his feet. _This was a massacre._

"Zack! Zack! Hey!"

Heavy clunking steps approached; backpacks laden with resources, shoulders slung over with glittering ropes of now-useless ammo, three of the guys who'd gone up to the Pagoda were making their way towards him. There was a whole string of Wutains behind them, tied together, heads down.

"Seems we ran into a few of their officials up there," one of them told him as they met in a crossroads, standing there amid the random crates and bodies and filthy rubble. "We're guarding the Pagoda till the general officers arrive to properly secure the place for the whole treaty business. No escape possible."

Zack nodded, then gestured towards the grim-looking, blood-spattered Wutains. "Where are you taking those?"

"We're not sure where we'll be holding the prisoners of war for now; we're taking them to base. Man, I hope this doesn't take long; these bastards are feisty." The Soldier's face was bruised and covered in a sticky mess of blood and ash; Zack nodded again, folding his arms and stepping aside so that they could continue down the road.

"Alright, good luck containing them."

"Hah!" The rugged Soldier slapped him on his pauldron as he went passed. Zack watched them go, trying to look into the face of each Wutain out of sheer morbid curiosity as they walked past him. Surprisingly, there were mostly women- though their rough hands and set faces made his surprise trickle away. He could only wonder at what was going through these hardened women's minds… then a face caught him off guard- she couldn't be over twenty! His lips parted slightly as he watched her walk past him, face as white as bone, dark eyes downcast as she passed him. Somehow he couldn't stop himself; intrigue gnawed at his self-control, and he reached out to her, albeit a little hesitantly.

Her eyes flickered up to his, a white disturbance in the foggy black of her gaze. _Crisis,_ she could've turned him to stone with that look.

"Hey – hey, what are you doing, bringing teenage girls to base? Look at this one!" he called out to his comrades. They scoffed without even turning back to acknowledge him.

"That's your manhood talking, Zack. Just wait till she rolls grenades in your bed and kisses you with a mouth full of safety pins – then we'll see how eager you'll be."

"Aw, come on. I just wanted to interrogate her," he insisted.

"Zack Fair, if you really want to die, come down to base when she'll be properly settled in. You're no match for these Wutain girls, trust me."

Zack smiled to himself, before taking off down another road. He had to find his superiors; find out the exact situation. And, he wanted to see if Sephiroth had actually gotten dirty at all – he would really hate to see the man win their bet, especially as he hadn't had the chance to shave and there was still ash all over him.

• •

The General couldn't be approached till three days later; the Wutain city was occupied but the war wasn't over, so neither he nor the other officers could possibly laze around like the platoon that had been assigned to guard the city.

More and more Wutains were hauled in and kept as prisoners; lieutenants came to report about the situation on the outer plains and quite predictably ShinRa was raking in the victories. Soldiers would stroll by the city and replenish themselves before going back to fight; and when Zack recognized several of Sephiroth's 'veteran' platoon on that third day, he couldn't repress a smile.

He only found the man when night had fallen; the candlelight glowed with a warm persistence from inside the windows of Wutai's most frequented restaurant, and after a day of asking around for news and drinking with some fellow soldiers, Zack decided that if he didn't find the General in there, he'd look for a comfortable cot somewhere and snore away the hours.

As soon as he pushed open the doors, it couldn't have been plainer that the elite had invaded the place; there was much less noise, and an elegant odour was in the air, wafting lazily in great grey coils. It took away the shine of the gold that lined the tables and looped artfully in different depictions on the walls; though it intensified the red atmosphere given by the painted tables, tasselled cushions and expensive rosewood panelling… He inhaled greedily, feeling his lungs expand so much he half-expected them to swallow up his ribs. There was a mane of silver hair over by the far counter, dark limbs perched on a high stool, trench coat discarded; it was suffocatingly hot in here. Zack made his way between the low tables, stealing glances at the scarred First Class warriors who sat around beautifully crafted hookah-like devices, dividing their attention between drinks, sweet smoke, and each other – several noisy groups hooted as he passed, but other than that there was some kind of meditative mood in the air, permeated with a drug-induced serenity.

Zack slid onto a stool next to the General, who had his elbows on the counter; fingers of one hand pressed to his lips as he inhaled from a black Wutain cigarette, fingers of the other hand holding up a small frayed book.

"You're looking cheerful, General," the black-haired Soldier greeted his superior, nodding at the Wutain waitress as she looked over at him. Sephiroth exhaled slowly, hand vaguely drifting away from his mouth as if he was aware of nothing else but the images that the scrawled writing evoked in his mind. Zack was about to poke him somewhere inappropriate to get his attention, but it ended up being unnecessary; the General always knows you're there.

"Yes… very cheerful to have found all you First Class mongrels sitting on your backsides waiting for the war to happen." A thumb flicked over to the next page.

"Hey – what were we supposed to do, without orders? Go build bonfires in the mountains?"

Yes, Zack had heard of that. A muscle in the General's jaw seemed to clench. "Still more cheerful at finding that trauma hasn't armed you with a more sophisticated sense of humour," Sephiroth said quiet calmly, still in that detached way as if he couldn't care less about the world outside that little book.

"_Trauma?_ Come on General, you haven't gone _soft_ on me have you?" Zack smiled, receiving the goblet of hot wine from the waitress and cupping it in his hands. "I mean, that's the reason for our upcoming victory, isn't it? Minds of metal."

"And you would openly advertise that?" Sephiroth's eyes flickered upwards though Zack couldn't be quite sure if he'd really seen it; a subtle slither of green beneath a shadowed, silver brow. "I can think of a few specific people who wouldn't appreciate that sort of lack of moral respect."

"Specific people…? Oh, very nice." The tip of Zack's nose disappeared in his cup. "Way to go, telling me not to advertise my lack of _moral respect_, only to remind me that you frolicked with my woman for one night and now undeniably know her more than I do. Specific people indeed! If that's respect for you, then I apologize for being rude but you should follow your own advice before handing it out like a fucking good Samaritan."

"Don't make me sound like some good-for-nothing adolescent." Sephiroth was almost smiling. He knew that once that Zack found out about that strange night, he'd be looking for an excuse to have a go at his General- it didn't matter what he said, Zack was still going to find some relevance to the whole embarrassing affair. He sighed; justification was necessary if he wanted to keep the evening peaceful. "A woman never shows the same side to the different men she meets. If you're really going to act cheated, then try to consider the fact that I might not know the same Gainsborough that you do- I will never claim to know her _better_."

Zack stared at him oddly. "Man – you really think your arguments through, don't you? That doesn't change the fact that while I was off trudging in the bleak blackness of drunken stupor, you were with _my_ girl. I don't care if a girl has a fucking personality disorder; you just don't hang around while her significant other is unconscious and sprawling over a nearby couch. It's just – you don't do that."

"It's not a question of personality disorder; it's a question of adaptation."

"No fucking difference. You just don't do that, man."

"Is that an order, Private Fair?" He still looked mildly amused, like he really couldn't give a two-pence for what the other was saying but was indulging in the conversation out of mere politeness.

"Damn right it's an order."

"Well then, when you obtain a higher military rank than me, I think I might just consider it."

"_Wh - _" The whoosh of compressed air that shot from Zack's lungs swayed a few wayward silver strands. He couldn't _believe _the nerve of that guy. "Oh, sod off."

"Alright, since you're intent on playing the cheated partner tonight, I'll let you in on something," Sephiroth said, and this time he sounded genuinely enthusiastic. Though there was something rather sadistic about his tone. Zack rolled his eyes, purposefully wedging his elbows on the counter to show he was only mildly interested. "Just to see if it's only me you're afraid of, or if you really doubt Gainsborough's loyalty."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I was wondering whether or not to tell you, now that there's been a change of plans." The General took a long drag, the bare tips of his fingers pressing against those thin violet lips. He wasn't looking at Zack, but he edged a little closer on the counter, as if to establish some sort of intimacy. "You see, a journalist approached me with disturbing news about rebellion in the Midgar slums… naturally, the Turks were the best choice for an investigation. And your little woman there apparently got quite tangled up in the whole affair…"

Zack was aghast. "What the hell do you mean? You didn't _purposefully_ - ?"

"No, of course not. It seems our flower girl has a knack of finding herself in all the wrong places at the right times."

"Then how do you know what's going on?"

"Well, now that communications are functioning again, I've been able to keep contact with my journalist, who's monitoring the whole affair."

"Call her," Zack barked suddenly, "Call her now. I don't trust you at all."

"Now there's a surprise," Sephiroth smiled that damned jagged mockery of a smile, taking his communications device out of his pocket and handing it to Zack. "If you're lucky you might get some live news."

A finger on the power switch, Zack gave his superior a smouldering glance before clipping the device to his ear.

"This is First Class soldier Zack Fair, comrade of the General. Do you read me?"

• • •

The bloody red petals uncurled among her delicate lilies, stigmata reaching out from the flowers' obscure hearts like the long, trembling feelers of some monstrous insect. They definitely looked out of place in this grubby little church amid her grubby little flowers and weeds, but somehow she liked the contrast; liked how they sprawled over the timid white and yellow of her own flowers in an ambiguous gesture; either protecting or smothering. She ran her fingers along the silky red of the petals, wondering just how further their petals would reach; they were still relatively young.

"They seem to be getting on well."

She turned swiftly, braid sweeping off of her back as she glanced over her shoulder at the figure that was leaning against one of the church pews. Her heart bumped against her ribs fretfully, as it did each time they met; she let the nervousness pull her mouth into a smile as she stood.

"Ryu! You're out late," she stammered, absently crushing the dead flowers that she'd been scooping up.

The figure seemed to inspect his fingers. "Well, I must say I prefer evenings… though you can't really tell in this place."

She sighed, noting the sickly sweet scent that emanated from the crushed flowers and moving towards one of the broken windows to throw them out. "I wish you wouldn't be so harsh on the slums. They have their own beauty, if you look hard enough."

"I suppose I can't help myself when I've lived in a place that is the complete opposite of this one." There was a low sigh. "And when you consider that it's this foul place that is overtaking my beautiful homeland… you have a hard time noticing the small, redeeming aspects."

Aeris looked over at him thoughtfully, before making her way towards the church pew across the aisle from his, head bowed in silence. "You say that, but it's not like you had such a hard time noticing us," she said at length, curling her fingers around the rough pew wood. "The redeemers of Midgar, slithering up from her cruddy pits!"

He smiled. "Indeed… very noticeable."

She forced herself not to fidget as his eyes lingered on her legs, climbing up the buttons of her pink dress, one by one, before coming to the hollow of her throat, brushing past her lips and up to her eyes again in one tantalizing stroke. Her heart stopped its bumping- it had plummeted down and was hiding somewhere in her boots, leaving her to deal with this as she saw fit.

"I thought the Wutain had tact," she said with a raised eyebrow, inwardly applauding herself for the rare steadiness of her voice.

"And I thought the Midgarian weren't so vulnerable." He smiled again, small intake of breath breaking the tension as he let his eyes drop again. "But you mustn't so readily judge what may have been involuntary."

_Inv__oluntary, my ass,_ she wanted to yell at him in the most unladylike manner she could muster, but she checked herself, trying to stay in character according to this new Aeris she'd been trying to construct. He could be pretty creepy sometimes… but she knew he didn't mean anything by it. At least, that's what she told herself. He usually covered up his 'blunders' by politeness, and so she couldn't really tell what he was about- she smiled as she always did, turning aside and stepping down the aisle towards where she'd left her purse and coat.

"So where are we going tonight?"

"The Seventh."

She groaned. "Oh, another night with the collaborators? Why can't you find more women – there's hardly any negotiation or proper exchange when we go. Just all this absurd patriotism."

"Patriotism can be very useful when you're trying to rein entire crowds in to do your dirty business," Ryu smirked, and when she turned to throw a scandalized look at him he waved it off. "I'm just stating a fact. And rebellion is always dirty business, whatever the glorious reasons."

"Well I hope it won't get too dirty," Aeris huffed, "If there's anything the Uplanders are good at, it's negotiation, even if they'll twist their words around."

"Aeris, let's not have this debate again." Ryu was chuckling to himself. "I'm not taking you to a meeting."

"Then why are you taking me out?" She didn't need to ask that question. Her heart was back, pounding rhythms of distress against her ribs and using her lungs as punching bags as she felt her breath shorten.

Those black eyes gnawed away at the effort she was putting in holding his gaze; she felt her eyes falter when those slender lips of his parted.

"Just for a drink- unless you don't want to, of course. I don't scare you _that_ much, do I?"

• •

"Tseng, I don't know if I can carry on with this. Wouldn't it be better if you just put an agent on me? I can't do this – really, I can't."

"Yes, you can. Where are you?"

"In the bathroom at the Seventh Heaven. He wants to spend time with me privately."

"Well, seeing how well-spoken and polite he is, that shouldn't be too much of a hardship."

"_Tseng_ - "

"How did you think this was going to turn out?"

"I thought you meant fond as in, friendship."

"Aeris…" A sigh. "Sometimes I forget how young you are."

"Don't you pull that _sometimes I forget_ crap on me. You could've been clearer!"

"Well I had an idea of how this would turn out, but it wasn't certain. I don't know the guy. What's important is that he gets close enough to you to share important information. I'm telling you, we've got you covered if anything happens."

"If _what _happens?"

"If he tries to kidnap you, drug you, hurt you in any way."

"And if he molests me?"

"If he's violent, of course."

"And if he's _not_?"

Silence.

"Okay, I quit."

"Oh no you don't. You must accept the fact that a man would tell his lover anything. But then that's just an option: you're capable enough of pushing away his advances without hurting the bond between you, aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

"Then do it. Tseng out."

"Wait, you damned_ – wait – _"

• • •

"From what Tseng has told me, tonight the Wutain spy isn't at any meeting… he's taking Aeris out to Sector 7, sir. It seems unofficial." The journalist's voice crackled through to Zack's ear, loud enough for Sephiroth to catch what she was saying.

"Then perhaps this is the wrong night to listen in on," he offered almost meekly, lighting a new cigarette.

"You don't fucking say," Zack seethed, hand on the device shaking with rage. "Can you put me online?"

"I'm afraid I can't, sir, not without permission."

Zack looked over at Sephiroth, handing him the device. "Tell her."

The General gazed at him intently, cigarette sending a coil of smoke up in the already hazy air. "No."

"What d'you mean, _no_? I have a right to know!"

"I decide who has the right to follow this affair. And I'm afraid your reasons, consisting purely of emotional attachment, are insufficient and wholly inappropriate."

"What the _fuck _do you _- _" Anger had the better of him; he leapt, leaving the device somewhere on the counter as he pulled Sephiroth to the ground in a clatter of stools and goblets. There was a collective hiss of metal as several elite warriors drew their swords, prepared to break up any violence that might arise; but they stayed their hands when they saw the assaulter and the assaulted. Smirking, they watched to see just how the General was going to deal with this one weak-minded fool.

"_You arrogant PIECE OF SHIT - "_

Sephiroth was laughing from beneath the enraged youth. "What are you going to do, Private Fair? Beat me to a pulp?"

Several of the elite laughed with him; Zack gave a bestial growl and sent a fist towards the General's lean face. A normal human being would've had their skull smashed inwards under such an impact, but Sephiroth caught the wayward fist and wrenched the entire arm to the side, getting back up and dragging the Soldier up to the counter, slamming him down against the soaked surface with both hands on the youth's collar. White strands wafted down, surrounding them as the General bent over the black-haired rascal, not even panting.

"You had better walk out of here and rethink your priorities," Sephiroth hissed, "Stop holding onto that ridiculous masculine pride of yours and get your head on straight. There are more important things at stake here than your little personal loyalty issues."

"If you think they're so little, why the hell did you go and _meddle _in them?" Zack hissed right back.

"I wasn't the one who assigned this task to Gainsborough. The Turks did. And you had better keep your mouth shut. I'd expected a reaction, but not one so infantile and dangerous to the secrecy we want to keep." His fingers tightened on the rough cloth of Zack's collar and he lifted the youth up a little from the counter so that their noses were almost touching. "Can I trust you, Private Fair?"

Zack would've wanted to rip the man's goddamn jaw right off right then and there to stop the flow of snide remarks, but that 'infantile' comment seemed to melt over his rage and crystallize it, making it seem like he was containing himself when his anger had only dropped from the surface and was now glowing coldly in some dark pit of his being. He nodded, glaring into the General's grave eyes, before being dropped rather rudely back down on the counter – he got himself together and marched out of the restaurant without further ado, feeling a blind fury climbing up his spine and crawling along the bones of his hands.

Just because he wasn't such a goddamned intellectual as the General didn't mean he couldn't understand all the facets of a given situation. He was so sick of there being 'more important things at stake'; he was sick of all the _categorizing_, of how every little thing that happened to him or that he reacted to had to be classified according to their importance in everyone else's eyes – whose job was that, anyway, to decide what to prioritize? If he'd been given a choice he would've flagged down a helicopter straight away and flown back to Midgar to kill the sodding fool who clearly was up to no good, instead of just hanging back and _watching_ him, watching as he rallied all the slums and seduced all the good women. What was he saying – there was only _one _good woman in the slums, and she was his to protect. Or _had been_ his.

His fist sailed to a nearby wall and broke away a chunk of bricks; passing Wutains and Soldiers looked at him oddly, and he turned a corner partly to get away from them, partly to stop himself from pouncing on the nearest Wutain man and gouging out his eyes. Gods. _Gods._

His hands were shaking. He couldn't even think. He could only imagine the flawless white of Aeris' body, the dark moles here and there amidst the snowy plains of skin, and how strange hands would soon be travelling down the paths that he knew so well…

He sat down on some debris of a house, hands still trembling as he fumbled for a cigarette. He couldn't believe this. Even if he knew he'd told Aeris that she shouldn't count on his loyalty, he never expected to be so unsure about hers. There was the old 'you get what you give' phrase circling in his mind as he pondered the ridiculous irony of this situation; his eyes glanced blankly off of the mutilated bodies that people were dragging off the streets, his heart only capable of aching for what was close to him. Maybe he was a man of no morals who expected everything of others, whilst purposefully living up to no one's expectations. Or maybe he was just a selfish bastard? That seemed plausible.

Blue silk was in the corner of his eye, and when he looked up the sunlight fragmented in his eyes – he squinted, taking a drag as he held up a hand to shield his gaze. There was a woman standing on the ruined veranda of the house on the other side of the street from him, lithe form hugging the last standing pillar like a blue caterpillar clutching to a last living stem. She had an unkempt look about her, like royalty stripped of all dignity and cast down into the ashes with the rest of the populace. Her long hair tumbled way past her shoulders, cutting her flesh into pale diamonds and squares, and when she looked out at him it was from behind a tangle of windblown strands. Those eyes… fierce as any solitary being who has known everything and been sundered from their old, cherished life.

His cigarette left his lips.

• • •

_A man will say anything to his lover._

Is it mentally possible to force wantonness onto yourself? To create the state of abandon and push yourself into it? Aeris seemed to be searching for the answers on the blue-lit paving stones that they trod side by side, hands deep in their pockets, breaths foggy before their faces. She hated chopping herself up like this, analysing which facets she could allow herself to show, holding back those that were inappropriate… not to mention all this tedious business seemed to be half-unconscious, so she was deathly afraid that she might stay in this state of analysis-paralysis even when being around people she was usually comfortable with, like her mother, or her friends… or Zack… or the General… well, not really _him_. That had just been a one-time thing, and she'd been half-drunk anyway so there was no way of knowing if her actions had been in accordance to her natural personality.  
But… what _was_ natural, for her? It was becoming harder and harder for her to perceive just what came to her naturally, and what had become habit or automatism. _Self-conditioning._ She shivered. Was there even a difference? Was it because of these long, tiring days of trying to adapt herself as best she could to this strange man of the like she'd never encountered before; or had she always been teetering on the edges of different kinds of personalities, always unsure as to which to definitively pick?

"Your thoughts are starting to churn a fog into the air," smiled the Wutain at her side. "Look up; we've arrived."

They'd strolled out of the Seventh Heaven somewhere around 3am, and whilst he seemed to be still perfectly conscious, she was far from it – her heels scraped at the cracks between the paving stones, shoulders swaying a little as she let her thoughts run, eyes always on the ground.

What was so hard about this, anyway? She smiled over at her companion, wondering if he was just as deceitful as she was; she wondered how it would affect a double-agent to meet another. It would certainly prove quite ridiculous if he had _other plans_, too.

She watched her own arm loop itself around his elbow, following the movement and leaning against him a little. To hell with _plans_. Why couldn't she make some of her own? What was stopping her, really; if the Turks were even bothering to stick their noses into this it probably meant it was important business, and that these were forces to be reckoned with. Should she really fear the threat of captivity, after all, if she chose her own side?

Still quite unsure as to whether or not these thoughts issued from a conscious, rational part of her mind, she still found herself weighing the pros and cons while Ryu stood beside her, fumbling for his keys with his free hand.

"Can I say something?"

She snapped back to life, eyes flicking up to his from beneath her smoky lashes.

"Of course!" She gave a tired laugh, "I'm sorry, I don't usually stay up so late." Well, without counting the recent days, though it wasn't like she'd gotten used to it yet.

The Wutain's strangely puckered lips stretched into another of his appreciable though utterly neutral smiles.

"I was wondering," said he as he inserted the key in the lock of his front door. "Where do your roots lie? Are you really… how to say it… a pure-blooded slum girl?"

"Pure-blood slum-dweller!" She laughed. "Now there's a noble title for such a raggedy band as us. But why do you ask?"

They crossed the threshold, Ryu's hand coming up to flick the lights on just inside the entrance.

"Your way of being… of talking. Your opinions. There's some underlying _thing_ that doesn't feel native to me, if you get my meaning." His eyes were vague as he sought the right words to nail his impressions; he stood with his back to her in the small kitchen they'd just entered, automatically going to a specific cupboard. "What will you be having?"

"Oh – you mean dinner?"

"I have rice, some canned vegetables, buckwheat pancakes…"

"Uh… it's… 3 o'clock in the morning?"

He looked over his shoulder at her with a mischievous grin. "Ah. Yes. You mustn't be accustomed to late meals. Beverage, then!"

"Ah - " She sighed. "Frankly I'd rather have pancakes than wine." Pancakes don't twist your mind up and set loose your tongue and wipe away your consciousness; and she definitely needed complete control on those things tonight.

So when they were comfortably seated at either side of the tiny round table, she gathered her mind and went back to the first question he'd asked.

"I'm not a native here, you guessed right," she said between mouthfuls, half pondering if he really didn't know her origins or if he was only trying to trick her into lying about herself in order to see where her allegiances lay. She felt herself mentally drooping as she cast around for a neutral answer, hating this uncertainty all the more. "But my roots have shrivelled. I've lived here most of my life precisely because there's nowhere I can go back to."

"How sad," the Wutain put in, though judging from the queer glint in his eyes, he seemed to be keeping his main impressions to himself. "So you have no kin?"

"I don't need kin," Aeris said quite confidently, having thought the matter over many times when the loneliness would become acute. "Blood means nothing to me." Heritage, however, meant the world to her. But it wasn't like she was going to spout, 'Doesn't matter, I can speak to the Planet! Isn't that jolly.'

"So you would give the importance of a blood-brother to any man with whom you'd bond?"

"I don't think so," Aeris smiled, cheeks plump with mushrooms and pancake. "To a woman, the importance of a blood-sister, maybe. But to a man… I don't know. Down here there's always a second side to the relationship when you befriend a man."

"What do you mean?"

She gave him an exasperated look; she knew he understood perfectly well, he just wanted to make her say it. "I mean a blatantly sexual side that they can't hide even when they swear that friendship is all that's intense between you."

His eyes sparked. "I'm sure that sort of thing can be controlled."

"You mean, you actually believe that every woman has enough authority to control a man's lust?" She scoffed. "I don't think so. It's more a question of trying very hard to _ignore_ the man's unconscious reactions to you."

"What about the conscious reactions?" He was plainly having fun, here.

"What, you mean like when you very conspicuously sweep your eyes up and down someone?" He grinned as she spoke, knowing very well to what she was referring. "Well, that depends on the man, if he's willing to keep his eyes and hands to himself." She swallowed her pancakes a little nervously. "Lovely, these."

"So you attest to having no control over a masculine partner if he so decides to take advantage of you," Ryu summarized, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms with an expression of purely childish amusement.

"Just as you would have no control over a feminine partner," she shot back, mirroring him and leaning back in her chair.

"Oh? Are the women so savage down here?"

"You have no idea," she grinned while her mind whirred, hardly keeping up with the words she was letting out. "That's probably why you weren't so hasty in rallying the women to you, after the men."

"Oh, I'm content in rallying those I wish to me," he told her, eyes never leaving hers. "And women are less eager to cooperate... they always need a deeper reason to indulge in something."

"A deeper reason, huh?" _Ka-thump_, went her heart behind her casual words.

"Yes." His eyes sparked again. "I'm sure you know what I mean."

• • •

It was like murder, only very drawn-out and rather more pleasurable than what Death was thought to be like. Her nails dragged down his flesh, carving lines and coils of dark pink along the rugged skin – legs hooked around his waist, she pulled him down to her like a spider, lips catching his in a stinging bite, hair tumbling over them both like so many threads of a dark web. His hands were on her hips, each one curled over the rounded bone as he thrust into her slowly, violently, locking her to him – she uttered no sound, only low breaths, and his lips were hot against her slender throat as he moaned with pleasure, lashes dark against his cheekbones as he let himself fall into the whorls of sensation that opened like a chasm in his body. And then she sank her teeth into the taut muscles of his throat and shoulders, biting down so hard that there was blood trickling from her open mouth over the hard domes of his flesh – without flinching he returned the treatment, and she gave a strangled yelp of pain as he pierced her delicate skin. She hated him, he knew that; this was some strange form of revenge, or suicide, he couldn't tell – nevertheless she was proving to be an adequate companion in self-destruction. His mouth wandered down her collarbone, and he bent his head as he flicked his tongue at the hardened nipple that rose against his chest, taking it between his teeth and hearing her trying to repress another cry of pain or pleasure – there was no longer any difference. It wasn't rape… well, it had started that way, but then their attack had become mutual. In any case it was very, very far from love. It was some delectable species of hate. Revenge. Confusion.

There were tears sliding down her temples, shimmering like jewels in the dim light of her room, and though neither of them could think, they were sharing this absurd pulsation of despair, and his tears mingled with hers as he knocked his forehead against her own again. Hands travelled up her waist, down his back, along her ribs, across his thighs, between their bodies, groping at the sheets around them… everywhere. And he pressed the burning length of his torso against her cold, cold body, and there was a blinding light on the inside of his eyelids as he felt her pulling at the strings of his very soul- something was building, or escaping, he couldn't tell- and then suddenly it was cold because she'd pulled away, only to bring him down on the bed and climb onto him… Her torso unfurled as she bent back, straddling him, and he threw back his head, biting savagely at his own forearm as she pulled him to the brink of consciousness, mind imploding, sensations fizzing in his veins and setting his entire body aflame. She moved against him just as violently as he'd moved against her, grasping his waist and thighs, lips parted and hushed moans seeping between her breaths every now and then. Both their eyes were closed.

And after a few moments she seemed to slow down, leaning over him, hair falling in two dark halves past her shoulders so that her knobbly spine emerged from her back as she curled over his heaving chest. Her hands came up to his face, grasping his jaw and turning his head so that he faced her. She was… looking at him. Her hips stilled, thighs coming to press against his sides as she gazed at him with those deep black eyes.

Long lashes stirring, he let the artificial blue of his eyes seep from beneath his eyelids, not having the energy to open his eyes any wider. He found himself mimicking her, hands coming up to cup her shadowy face – their lips met, blood and sweat and tears mingling in a salty cocktail as they bit and pressed and pinched and nipped at each other. Then that, too, became slower and less violent, even _tender_, and she took his lower lip into her mouth as languidly as any lover would; he broke the kiss, looking up at her and realizing finally that she was not a being of unadulterated hatred as he'd deluded himself into thinking. She sat up again and he followed her movements with his eyes, taking in how the light glanced off her slight bosom and trickled down the line that divided her abdominal muscles; how the black of her hair framed the bruised white wonder of her body. And she slipped off of him, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching down to the floor – there was a sound of snapping wood, and he heaved himself up onto his elbows, watching as she straightened again, a nude beauty in the dim light. There was something dark in her hand; when she turned around he saw that she bore an orb of black light in her hand, abstract tendrils of magic wafting from its centre.

It was materia, the kind that allowed you to deal death on the weak.

She looked down at him with a grave expression, shifting so that she sat against his thigh. And then she offered the orb to him.

He stared at her, brow creased in a frown, mind still recovering as he continued to consider that perhaps her own individuality was just as complex as his (probably more so). There was suddenly something very real about the whole notion of self-destruction; granted, there was nothing more appropriate in this situation than an exit such as the one she was offering. But it was ridiculous to consider doing it to her… just - just like that. He took in the black orb, and considered. Tried to think of her position past his own wretchedness. Tried to realize just how serious she'd been in their insane embrace. Tried to realize… just how very real she was.

He found himself shaking his head.

She frowned at him, taking his wrist and pressing the orb into his palm; it was cold and heavy, dreadful to behold, and he knew he shouldn't have accepted it but by now he was too numb to act on any impulse or moral reflex. This was a different situation; she had an alien mind, in comparison with his, and he couldn't apply his own codes to her actions. Which made everything so goddamn complicated and what the hell, he couldn't just _do_ this!

She was gazing at him steadily, and he let the orb roll out of his palm and onto the mattress before reaching out and taking her by the shoulders.

"Why?" he asked her, and though his tone was gentle his eyes were bewildered. "Why?" Why had she lain so passionately with him? Why was she entrusting her own passage to the other world to an enemy? Why was she being so blatantly careless of factions and hatreds? She surely had a dead lover out on the plains, like every woman here. So why…?

She wouldn't speak. She only gave him the sort of grin a Reaper would wear upon hearing the pleas of the condemned. Then she reached for the orb, and gave it to him again.

• • •

He woke with a start – the covers fell from his legs where they had been precariously hanging for the past hour, crumpling to the floor and tripping him up when he tried to get up. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. An acute pounding seemed to be knocking a lump into his skull as he groped blindly down the corridor, grumbling to himself - indeed, even men as classy as Tseng could have their dried-drool, static-hair moments.

When he got to his mobile in the living room, he let himself fall into the mushy depths of his sofa and answered without even glancing at who was calling.

"Reno, you're fired," he growled, "I warned you against binge-drinking, so don't come whining to me when you're sober – this is the _third time_ you've deprived me of sleep here. I'm not having it."

There was no answer, only a strange sort of snuffling sound, as though someone was trying to stifle sobs. Tseng opened his eyes a crack, surprised and feeling a little dumb.

"Who is this?"

"You bastard."

His eyes opened wider. "Excuse me?"

"I don't know why I'm calling you," It was a woman's voice, thin and trembling. "But you can rest assured that you won't be hearing from me any more after this."

"Aeris? Is that yo - " Of course, of _course_. "Where are you? Why are you calling so late?" Early, rather; it was nearing 5am.

"How does it feel, Tseng?" she hissed, plainly ignoring his questions, "How does failure feel to someone like you? Have you ever won anyone's trust, I wonder? And has anyone truly won yours?"

He frowned, before jumping up and going for his bedroom, putting her on loudspeaker. This was not good.

"Aeris - are you alright?" he asked as he rummaged for some clothes.

"Oh, yes, of course," she said in a sing-song voice, "You went offline at 3am, and I can assure you that since then things have been going very smoothly for me. According to your plans, I mean."

His heart plummeted upon hearing that ghastly tone of voice. He'd never heard her speak like this before… if he hadn't recognized her voice, he surely wouldn't have thought this was the girl he knew since childhood.

"What do you mean?"

She sighed, and while she gathered the appropriate words he was locking his apartment door and rushing down to the building's garage.

"I wish I could've kept a diary, all these years," she pondered out loud as he raced down the flights of dimly lit stairs. "It's like putting a lock on your personality, isn't it? Writing your thoughts. Why you choose this over that. Why you allow this, and not that. Why is it that our minds are so fickle? How can we know if we have a hold over them? How can we trust our own actions, when we can't trust ourselves?"

"It's what everyone wonders at your age, and afterwards."

"At my age, not everyone is a bloody double-agent," she snapped. "Do you like how your own mind has developed? Do you sometimes wonder why you've let yourself become such an ass?"

"Not really," Tseng smiled, ducking into his car and turning on the GPS, typing a code that would direct him towards the phone signal. "My mind's adapted to my current situation. That's all that matters."

"Is it really?" He wondered if she could hear the car engine revving; maybe she didn't care as much as she said she did about coming into contact with him after this dreary conversation. "Then again, I'm talking to someone who hasn't had to adapt their minds in order to open their thighs before any given target."

"Oh, it's about that again, is it?" Tseng replied, "And if you're speaking figuratively, I _have_ opened my thighs to a lot of people." He couldn't believe he was saying this – but if it could comfort her… "Everyone who's in a high position has done a bit of mental prostitution, you know."

"Prostitution," she echoed, her voice cracking. "That hurts."

"I did say _mental_."

"I know." She sighed. "I'm nowhere near a high position, and yet I've done every kind of prostitution there is – and for what? For _what_?"

There was a slow, pensive intake of breath, followed by an equally languid exhalation.

"I quit, Tseng," she said shakily, "I quit. I don't want to hear from you again. I don't want you to monitor my movements, or keep me _safe_, or whatever."

"I told you, 'Ris," Tseng said calmly, "You can't quit. Not if you value your life."

"And you can't threaten m- "

"I'm afraid I can," he said almost sadly, "What's the worst thing the authorities can do to me? Fire me, maybe – give me a hefty sum to pay them back. Now, what's the worst thing the scientists can do to you, do you think? ... "

Silence. One thing was certain - he had never felt more wretched.

"Wait for me, don't hang up," he suddenly found himself saying; he was nearing the signal (which was, strangely, coming from the Upper plate), and the silence was going on for too long. She gasped softly on the other end of the line as realization hit her, and he could've slapped himself for the blunder; the connection died quite abruptly just as he came to the train station where she was supposed to be calling him from.

He parked messily near the entrance and ran to the iron-wrought fences; they were closed, and a figure could be seen among the slender rungs of coiling black. He rushed to the lock, found that it wouldn't budge, and then went to the figure on the other side of the fence.

She was leaning against the iron, skinny arms hugging her chest, chin on her collarbone as she kept her eyes on the ground. She was like an apparition; there was no one else around, and the train station seemed queer and unsettling in the darkness.

"Aeris, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I don't know," she whispered, so quietly he had to press himself up against the space she occupied to hear what she was saying.

"Open the gate."

She shook her head.

"…What happened?" He slid his hands between the iron bars and she didn't even flinch when his fingers brushed her shoulders. "Why did you come up?"

"I couldn't stay down there," Aeris sighed, "I couldn't bear it."

"Why?"

She took a breath, and then turned around; he watched as the moonlight trickled down her cheek and along her throat as she moved, fingers like molten silver coming to close around the iron bars just below his. Her eyes were downcast, wisps of hair coming to accentuate the rounded lines of her cheekbones.

"But it's not like being up here is any better," she whispered as though to herself, "I have all the information you need. And I have all the information _he_ needs, concerning ShinRa's security systems, thanks to you and Zack. And I have no idea _why_ I'm telling you this…"

"Shh." He slid his fingers over hers; their faces were so close, on either side of the gate. "It's because you don't know in which direction to go, isn't it?"

She still wouldn't look at him, though her hands didn't budge, snuggled as they were in his warm palms. "Why didn't you just arrest him? Why all this sneaking around and toying with each others' allegiances?"

"Can't you see what I'm doing?" Tseng replied, inching closer so that their foreheads could've touched. "I'm giving ShinRa a reason to consider you as something more than just a runaway specimen. If you help them in this crisis, who knows what freedoms they'll grant you?"

She looked up at him sharply, green eyes stinging him. "And then you say _I'm_ naïve."

"This sort of action has weight, Aeris."

"I don't need a ShinRa-stamped approval to obtain some degree of freedom."

"I'm afraid you will, when I won't be around to protect you any more."

"And when will that be?" she whispered. "Are you tired of all this yet?"

"I'll never be tired of this," he told her in the same hushed voice, "It's up to you."

•

He gazed at her, curled up in his bed as she was, warmed by the light of the morning. The poor thing was clearly sleep-deprived and her reasoning was affected by it, but she never seemed to lose that glaring innocence of hers. He wasn't sure if she was asleep yet; they'd talked of the information that the Wutain spy had given her, and then he'd refused point-blank to let her journey all the way back down when she couldn't even stand properly without swaying like a drunkard.

She stirred when he sat on the edge of the bed, his back to hers.

"What are you going to do now?" Her voice was groggy.

"Well, I would really hate to let the matter go, since it seems pretty extravagant now but it might escalate into something more serious and organized if we give it more time." She'd told him that the Wutain planned to infiltrate the slums with secret exterior troops. "We don't have enough guards to keep an eye on all the Sectors, at the moment. I think the logical solution would be to bargain with the slum-dwellers themselves."

"What, give them guns?" The grogginess of her voice prevented all other emotion from expressing itself in her tone.

"Well, something like that. Promise them a bit of land on the plate, money, well, essentially just _bribe_ them, really – sorry if I sound crude but I'll not dampen terms with you, now that you're in the business." He smiled at how absurd that sounded. Aeris… his Aeris, tremulously peeling away her innocence. And him, the cause of it all. No. _Focus._ "And yes, arm those who are willing. Get in touch with the gangs and the crime lords. I'll send some scouts out to see if his words are founded, too; now that the war is practically won, I'm sure they'll strike soon, just when our minds are bent on festivities instead of vigilance."

He was so concentrated on his plans and what the Wutain's actions could possibly mean that at first he didn't notice the feather-light hand that curled around his forearm, as discreetly as a rare caress of sunlight. But then as the comfortable silence settled, he looked down to see her clutching his arm loosely, having turned around to face him though her eyes were still downcast. Something seemed strangely off… she'd never succumbed to this degree of melancholia, or at least he'd never witnessed it. She was strangely… grey. As though all that buoyant energy that usually inhabited her had seeped away in the night.

"He _has_ rallied a good number of slum folk to his cause, you know," Aeris mumbled, as though it was a thought that she was letting out only with difficulty.

His hand came down to press hers and the warm, slightly sweaty contact seemed to tug bitterly at his heart. "Rising against the plate is folly, Aeris. It's suicidal. And I'm sure the slum folks will prefer the offer of money and pleasantries rather than the offer of a heroic death."

"What makes you so sure?" Flawed green coiled questioningly around his gaze.

"They've had nothing to savour for their whole lives. Please correct me if slums don't make you yearn for a better life, rather than the best of deaths."

"I don't know," she answered him after a pause, still gazing at him with an indecipherable _something_ glinting in her eyes. "I think most would have a hard time choosing between the two. And don't forget that cooperating with the Wutains feels better than cooperating with ShinRa."

"I know." He sighed. "This is such a mess."

"You should've just removed the guy," Aeris commented, still with that strange, neutral tone.

"Probably." His fingers came to knead his forehead. There had to be some ulterior motive; this guy had to know that his actions wouldn't win him a military victory. Then what…?

He got up, gently removing the girl's hand and heading towards the kitchen to make them both an adequate breakfast; it had been so long since he'd abandoned any type of sane eating pattern that he almost caught himself smiling wistfully. Just when he had so many important matters at hand, the girl just _had_ to come and sleep at his apartment for the first time. No time to hoover, no time to buy proper food, no time to put away his vagrants pants and other forgotten things… _ugh. _Well. Peanut butter would have to do.

•

Her limbs came inwards as she curled into herself, pulling the sheets up over her head. Eyes squeezed shut, knuckles white, brow knitted in a rush of anxiety. She could still feel the tingling warmth of his palm on her hand, of his tender eyes devouring hers. Just as surely as she could still feel the possessive grip of the other man's hands around her wrists, the throbbing between her legs, the ache in her chest as she chose between the two. All the tragedy of a double-agent's situation, really - reason, or impulse? Love, or opportunism?

_What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?_

_•  
_


End file.
